


Rubatosis

by Kangoo



Series: Monachopsis [2]
Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Falling In Love, Graphic Depictions of Undeath, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magical Theory, Male-Female Friendship, Near Death Experiences, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 11:34:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14401296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangoo/pseuds/Kangoo
Summary: /Rubatosis/nounthe unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat, whose tenuous muscular throbbing feels less like a metronome than a nervous ditty your heart is tapping to itself, the kind that people compulsively hum or sing while walking in complete darkness, as if to casually remind the outside world,I’m here, I’m here, I’m here."What a terrifying responsibility it is, to hold someone’s heart. What a terrifying amount of power to have on such a dangerous man."Translation into Русский available





	Rubatosis

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Rubatosis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16830124) by [Feloriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feloriel/pseuds/Feloriel)



> (Title from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows)
> 
> Well it sure has been a while, hasn't it?
> 
> Before anything else, I want to thank everyone who left a comment or a kudo on the first part. Your support on AO3 (and on tumblr! I love it when people support my shitposts) means SO MUCH to me, and it has kept me going during my exams, college applications and general life stress. You guys are awesome.
> 
> The aforementioned life stress is also why this sequel is four months in the making. That and the fact it's 24k words long... welp.
> 
> Disclaimer: I have never been in love, so my depiction of those two sappy assholes might be a bit off
> 
> Much thanks to the Disaster Elves crew, who are a constant source of memes and support, especially [flyingllamas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingllamas/pseuds/flyingllamas) who made me add 1500 words to this monster and is generally a really cool person!!
> 
> Enjoy! :D
> 
> Edit: and thank to [Feloriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feloriel/pseuds/Feloriel) for the translation <3

Kil'jaeden isn't the first thing Illidan wants to talk about just after meeting his _soulmate_ — he doesn't want to talk at all, really, not while he’s still riding the disbelieving high of their first meeting. But it must be done, and now is as good a time as it will get.

Vashj looks grim, as she should. She knows the danger that the Legion represents, and even more so what it can do to failing servants. Kael'thas, on the other hand, looks— angry, blue eyes narrowed and burning like mana fire. His fingers twitch at his side, itching for magic, and his left hand closes around the pommel of his sword.

(Illidan can see _everything_ — every minute reaction, ever expression crossing his face, as if the Fel of his tattoos reflected on him, or rather as if he exuded magic himself, enough to be seen by Illidan's eyes.)

Vashj turns to look at him and there's a question in her gaze. Illidan is a little envious, perhaps, of her ability to communicate so easily with him. Envious but grateful, still, that Kael'thas has not been facing the hardships of the past few months alone. Loneliness, Illidan knows, does terrible things to the mind, and he is glad that Kael'thas has found friendship and support in one of the few person in this universe that Illidan would trust with his life — and his soul, now.

“The Horde, then the Scourge, and Kil'jaeden now— will I ever be safe from the Legion's flames? Has it not been enough?” He shakes his head and forces his hand to relaxes and fall back to his side. Illidan wants to take it, hold it and never let go. “I'm sorry. It must seem like such trivial matters to you—”

“ _Never_.” The word escapes him, but it is absolutely genuine. It shocks Kael'thas into silence and Illidan, for a moment, swears to never make it a habit; Kael'thas has a lovely voice and an even lovelier mind, and he wants to hear as much of it as possible. But for now, things must be said — important things, more important than the threat of Kil'jaeden looming on the horizon. “You have lost much, as have I, and there is no quantifying _loss_ , Kael. Your grief is justified, has it lasted one year or a thousand, and I mourn with you.” The nickname slips past him and Illidan wonders, is it Kael'thas' presence or exhaustion that makes his words escape him so? Softer, he adds, “Nothing that hurts you could ever seem trivial to me. I cannot bear to see you suffer.”

It's infuriating how cheesy it sounds and how much he means every word of it. He hasn't been such a lovesick fool since— oh, Tyrande, most probably, if he ever has been before. But neither Vashj nor Kael'thas call him out on it. The later looks shaken, but pleasantly so, as if he did not expect Illidan to say anything of the like. Vashj, on the other hand, just looks approving.

“We've just met,” Kael'thas says, disbelieving.

“And yet I feel like I've always known you, for the thousands of years I have lived,” Illidan replies. He's used to loving people more than they will ever love him back. At least Kael'thas enjoys his company; maybe that's the best he'll get. Maybe that's what he deserves.

This time, he huffs a watery laugh. His eyes are shining wet, but he's starting to smile despite the grief still bowing his shoulders. “So do I, although I couldn't say why.” 

Absentmindedly, he raises his hand to his chest, his fingertips resting above his heart.

In his days, a theory was that soulmates share more than just the words written on their wrist. Emotions, thought, pain, magic — a connection of two individuals on every level, from the deepest to the most superficial. Now, with his own soul staring at his from behind mana-blue eyes, Illidan is inclined to agree with the idea. His magic thrums behind his ribs, acidic Fel and lightning-cold arcane, and there's something else, something small that he had pinned on his faulty memory of his own magic after ten thousand years without it. Something that feels a lot like fire.

Sadly, this is not the time to discuss bond theory, no matter how appealing the idea is. Illidan shakes his head slightly and motions to a quieter corner of the camp, an outcrop of blood-red stone overlooking the vast, barren plains of the Hellfire Peninsula. “I have missed much of what has been happening in Azeroth,” _Again_ , he doesn't say. “Why don't we take this debriefing somewhere the rumor mill we call an army won't eavesdrop?”

Kael'thas shakes his head, fond or bemused he cannot say, and they make their way to the more secluded cliff. There, away from their gossiping troops — who have gotten enough entertainment as it is with this whole soulmate business — his two lieutenants tell him of the Scourge continued advance, the Alliance's effort to keep it at bay and, finally, of the blood elves' plight.

It's a familiar story, the kind of familiarity that makes his heart ache in sympathy and his throat dry in remembered fear. It's not a nice feeling, but he leans into it all the same, eager to share Kael'thas' grief for his people.

The prince looks at the verge of tears as he relate their forced exile, the crumbling ruins of the cities they try to reclaim, the agonizing deterioration of the high elves once cut from the Sunwell. He mentions the death of the previous king offhandedly, another blow to his people, and for an instant he looks so _sad_ Illidan wants to wrap his wings around him and hide him from this awful world. But Kael'thas swallows his grief and keeps going, voice steady, and Illidan push the irrational impulse out of his mind for now.

Finally, Kael'thas talks of the hunger.

Illidan can feel it, too. He forgot what it felt like in his cell, suspended in so much magic he almost drowned in it, and the marks Sargeras left him with used to help once he got out. Now, fingertips still tingling with the warmth of Kael'thas' skin, his mark golden on his wrist, it came back; a great, yawning emptiness in his chest, not quite starvation but close, all-consuming and deathly cold. It isn't his pain but he feels it all the same, in his soul rather than his body.

It's not too bad. It hurts, but he's used to hurting. And maybe, like this, neither of them will be alone.

“Can you help us?” Kael'thas asks, lifting his eyes to meet Illidan's. He holds the fiery (ha, ha) gaze without flinching, waiting in quiet anticipation for an answer Illidan knows he can't give. “Can you _cure_ us?”

“There _is_ no cure, Kael. I'm sorry.” And he genuinely is. How odd; he always was quite awful at saying _sorry_. “But there are other ways to appease this hunger, as imperfect as they may be. As long as you are by my side, I'll offer you and your people all the magic that you could ever want and more — and I would be glad to help you finding a way to save _all_ of your people, if you would let me.”

The look Kael'thas gives him is both grateful and melancholy, and Illidan hates himself a little bit for lacking the knowledge necessary to wipe the frown off his face. When, he wonders, did he get so attached to the man in the mere hours they have known each other, himself being unconscious for most of those?

Elune, it's been a long, _long_ time since the last time he's been infatuated with someone, and it stills feels terrifying when it happens.

“So be it, then,” Kael'thas sighs, and bows his head. “My people and I are yours to command... my lord.” And there is a spark of humor there, in the way his voice lilts ever so slightly around the honorific, both a joke and a sincere mark of respect.

“Then it is decided, Prince. You'll be my right hand, the harbinger of my rage and that of all of your people, and nothing will stand in our way.”

At that Kael'thas seems pleasantly surprised. “Shouldn't Lady Vashj takes this responsibility, considering her seniority over me at your side?”

Illidan scowls, barely half serious. He doesn't want anyone but Kael'thas leading at his side, but even he can see the flaw in his thought process. Fortunately, it is not his only reason. “Lady Vashj has opted out of this one responsibility,” He explains.

“One of us would go insane in a month's time,” She adds and then, to Kael'thas only, although she makes no effort to prevent Illidan from also hearing, “Lord Illidan is a strategic disaster and I, for one, do my best when he isn't overseeing my plans. I do not fancy the headache you'll undoubtedly get from his own.”

“I do like a challenge,” Kael'thas says around a smile, glancing almost fondly in Illidan's direction.

He feels like he deserves a little more respect than what he is getting from his oldest friend and lieutenant, but if it allows him to see this smile more often, he probably doesn't mind as much as he should.

Oh, he doesn't mind it at all.

 

-

 

It is— odd, to look at his mark and see it not dark but golden and glittering in the firelight. Kael'thas has lived his whole life with the black script unchanging on his skin, to the point that it had become something of a reminder of home lately, a rare familiar sight in the storm that his life has become.

One last thing to escape him, it seems. He has yet to decide if this is for the best, or if it will only lead to more troubles.

With a sigh, he lets his sleeve cover his wrist again. He keeps looking at his mark, as if he was a child again, learning to read Darnassian on his mark as much as in any book. It's an annoying habit, if only because he thought he had gotten rid of it in his teenage years; yet, he keeps coming out of his thoughts to the unassuming words staring back at him, shimmering like molten gold poured under his skin.

(Kael'thas has never, in his life, been average in anything. Being born with a soulmark whereas most only get theirs once both them and their soulmate comes of age is neither the weirdest nor the most noteworthy entry on the ever-growing list, but it _has_ lead to a number of habits that, it seems, he'll never fully be free of.)

Looking up, he meets Rommath's resigned eyes and gives him a faint smile. “You _know_ I can't go.”

Rommath rolls his eyes, less a respectable mage than a teenager stuffed into the body of a prodigy. Kael'thas has a habit of making friend with _those_ , it seems. Well, it makes for interesting company, if not wise or quiet one. 

“I'm not an _idiot_ , thank you very much. These soldiers, here? They need you more than Quel'thalas does. This far from home, if you were to leave them to one of your subordinate—” He doesn't elaborate on his thought, but they both have an idea of what he means. “Lor'themar, on the other hand, appears to be doing a sufficient — albeit boring — job as your regent. His letters might be drier than this hell of a planet, but at least they don't scream of panic and barely-contained chaos to me.”

Contrary to _here_ , where Illidan's troops are as much refugees are the sin'dorei back on Azeroth, only slightly more insane. Blood elves, of course, have this area quite covered on their own but still, Outland is hell in itself but also on the mind it seems, if the increasingly irrational thought process of Kael'thas' lieutenants is anything to go by. Which he should really do something about, by the way: no one needs the blood elves to be even _madder_ , thank you very much.

“But you know me,” Rommath continues, and by that he means: _you know how much of a mother hen I am._ But he'll deny it if Kael'thas mentions it, so he refrains. For now. “I am… uneasy with the idea of leaving you here alone, without anyone to watch your back.”

“There is no one I trust more than you, Rom.”

He might be a disaster barely held together by spite and irrational rage, but at least he's a disaster Kael'thas _knows_. The same cannot be said for Lor'themar: as much as he respects the man, he needs one of his _own_ people watching things for him. Their already low numbers are quickly decreasing, what with Sylvanas's death and the slow realization that half of the sin'dorei upper society is nothing more than an ocean of sharks. Useful for gossips; less so to entrust his crumbling kingdom to.

(He really should have made more friends at the Kirin Tor: mages, especially human ones, are far less likely to throw him under the zeppelin than even the most friendly of sin'dorei aristocrats. They simply lack the drive to, considering there is nothing in it for them.)

And Rommath, his best friend for decades, is an incredible mage and a frightening warrior, but he takes to spying in a way he never did to war. Which is why Kael'thas has no other alternative than to send him back to Azeroth, to Quel'thalas, where he'll report everything Lor'themar and company do to the rightful — albeit reluctant — heir to the throne.

“I _know_ ,” Rommath replies, sounding far more desperate than he really ought to in the face of such news. “There's not other choice — doesn't mean I don't get to complain about it.”

Kael'thas snorts, hiding his growing smile in the high collar of his robes. “ _Typical_.” He loops his arm around Rommath's shoulder and drags him into a hug, which his friend bears in his usual long-suffering fashion. “Don't worry about me, alright? I won't be _all_ alone. There's Lady Vashj, and Lord Illidan. They'll keep me safe. Their job will be a lot easier without you to drag me into trouble, anyway.”

“ _I_ drag you into trouble? _You're_ the one who brought us to another planet!” Rommath cries out, faking outrage. Then his features become more serious, and he pins Kael'thas down with an unusually somber stare. “I trust Lady Vashj to keep you alive, out of duty if nothing else, although I have the feeling there might be some kind of motherly streak under her scary exterior.”

“Oddly enough, I don't. She's terrifying and hellbent on making fun of me as much as possible.”

Rommath ignores his comment. “Illidan is the one I'm worried about, to be honest.”

“He's—” Again, his treacherous fingers lifts to his left wrist and he forces his hand to fall back to his side. “He's my _soulmate_.”

“He's also obsessed by the downfall of the Legion, and yet seems to have made it a habit to strike foolish deals with its leaders.” Rommath shakes his head and hooks a finger in his mask, dragging it down so Kael'thas can see how serious he is. “I'm worried, Kael'thas. He clearly _looks_ besotted already, but that might not be a good thing. Just— be careful, alright?”

(Rommath's mark simply reads, 'Archmage'. It is both a self-fulfilling prophecy as to Rommath's career in the Kirin Tor and an eternal source of frustration, considering it is _literally_ the first thing anyone who has heard about him says when meeting him. He's grown rather disenchanted with the concept of soulmate, perhaps for good reasons.)

“I will,” Kael'thas promises, and it's barely a lie.

Their goodbyes after that are short but heartfelt and then Rommath is off through the portal, back to Azeroth which Kael'thas will not see for a long, long time.

But there is much to be done and tearing up about his best friend and planet being a universe away from him isn't on the program. Kael'thas straightens his shoulders, lifts his head, and strides back to Illidan's side as if it is where he's meant to be.

In time, it will be.

 

-

 

After that, there is no more time for petty mortal things such as emotions or sleep. There is a war to be won and nothing else, at least not in Illidan’s eyes.

He’s entirely focused on his goal. His own health, short-terms plans and Kael’thas all fall in the background in one tangled mess of responsibilities to deal with later (ideally never).

It’s up to Kael’thas to pick up the pieces and make up for Illidan’s tunnel vision. It’s not much different from what he was doing on Azeroth: he does his best to look in control, takes many deep, calming breaths, and pretends he knows what he’s doing as he moves troops around on their path to the Black Temple. Let Illidan worry about whatever demonic being they are about to face; Kael’thas has more pressing matters to attend to, such as how they are going to feed their army and how many recon missions he can give Akama before he realizes Kael’thas is mostly trying to keep him and his people as far from the decision-making as possible without actually banishing them to the most remote place of the Netherstorm.

The Broken, few as they are, are invaluable allies in their battle against the Legion, but Kael’thas is reluctant to fight at their side. To be honest, although they fought back Magtheridon’s orcs well enough together, he only trusts Akama as far as he can throw him, and he figures that isn’t very far at all.

He understands the old draenei’s motives: sheer will isn’t always enough to survive, and when you have nothing left to sacrifice, betrayal will do _just fine_. It takes one to know one, after all, and Kael’thas was more than happy to throw the human Alliance under the metaphorical cart as soon as it became evident they didn’t have his people’s best interest in mind. Thing is, _not_ getting back-stabbed by an alien is his best interest at the moment, so he’s not particularly eager to fight alongside someone who would sold them all to the Legion for one corn chip.

Illidan doesn’t care, of course. The man would recruit _Maiev_ if she were willing to refrain from killing him for a short while. Hell, he became a demon to be better at killing them: he will stop at nothing to achieve his goal, no matter how inadvisable the choice. And admirable as his dedication might be, it’s a straight-up recipe for disaster — in their case in the form of massive treason, hanging like the sword of Damocles above their heads.

Kael’thas can almost feel his hair graying just _thinking_ about this mess.

It bears repeating he is a _mage_ , not a military strategist— but one day, he might be. Illidan is right when he says the blood elves have been changed by the wilderness. They all have, somehow: there isn't anything like the threat of certain death to bring people together. He can see it in the eyes of his people when they bite into the blueish meat of some native creature without hesitation, miles away from what they were used to in Azeroth. Loss and hardships have changed them; it's in the nature of war, to make soldiers out of everyone. Even innocents. Even Kael'thas.

Still, he’s making it all up as he goes along and, he suspects, so are the others. Three dumbasses with no idea what they're doing must make one semi-competent leader, right? That's why they're together, Illidan and Vashj and him. They're good at making up for the others' faults. Illidan has no patience for planning, but Kael'thas and Vashj have it in spades; Kael'thas cannot, for the life of him, inspire his people through his words, but Illidan has enough charisma for three... It all works out, in the end: he could almost believe they know what they're doing.

He wouldn't say no to some kind of detailed five-year plan, but this will suffice for now.

 

-

 

Facing Magtheridon gives Kael'thas two epiphanies, back to back.

The first one is this: the Legion is nothing like what he expected. The pit lord towers over them all, a mountain of muscles and sharp edges, horns and spikes protruding from every inch of his hideous form. There is nothing remotely familiar about the sheer revulsion inspired by such a sight, not like the carnage of a battlefield can be, awful in the way it looks alike to every other before it and all those that will follow. He realizes, then and there, that this is what he's signed up for; a hopeless battle against the kind of nightmares you can't wake up from. He rests his eyes on Magtheridon and knows the sight will follow him to his sleep; already it's graved on the back of his eyelids, right next to the smoking ruins of Silvermoon and the shambling corpses of his people roaming through the destroyed streets.

For a moment, he isn't sure he is up to the task.

See, Kael'thas would consider himself quite skilled. He's been called a genius before and he bears the title with, maybe, too much pride; there is precious little he cannot do. He can master most kinds of magic, fight with a dozen different weapons, cook, hell, apparently he can lead an army, of all things. Point is: he might not be omnipotent, but he gets _damn close._ But this? Vanquishing the Legion? He could easily add it to his short lists of things he cannot do.

(Along with raising the dead, saving Silvermoon from the Scourge, and frost magic — although, for that last one, it's more that he doesn't _want_ to, rather than that he physically can't. He's sure with enough work he would manage, it's just that there is nothing he wants to work on _less_ that frost magic.)

Which brings him to a second realization: maybe he has no hope of destroying the Legion, but Illidan? If given a chance, Illidan just might.

He's just tall enough to be at eye-level with Magtheridon's midsection, and yet he doesn't seem aware of his disadvantages. He stands proud, wings slowly unfurling behind him, and he _grins._ His fingers curl around his warglaives, the muscles of his arms tense in anticipation— Kael'thas gets the impression the only thing keeping him from jumping on the pit lord at this moment is the equally burning desire to insult him.

(He has placed all his bets on this dangerous, reckless man, and he's not sure he ever made a better or worse decision in his life.)

The tension snaps like a rubber band pulled taught; Magtheridon closes his maws around one final careless threat, and in the span of a blink Illidan is on him in a whip-like sound of beating wings. It’s more than a little terrifying to see his master — _his soulmate_ — jump blade-first into the fray with no regard for his own safety, but Kael'thas can't help the ruthless smile stretching his lips seemingly against his will. It's an incredible sight, and it makes his blood sing and his fingers itch for his own blade. The pit lord roars in anger and Illidan flies around rocks shaken loose from the ceiling by the sound like a dancer, looking as if he doesn't have a care in the world.

Another strike, lightning-quick, and more fel-green blood drips to the ground. Magtheridon roars again and his great tail swipes left and right, sending unattentive soldiers flying through the room. No matter how much he'd like to keep watching Illidan fight, he can't; Vashj is already firing volleys of arrows at the pit lord at the pace of a siege weapon. Demons swarm the so-called 'throne room'; keeping them from jumping on Illidan takes all their attention, which leaves him alone to fight the pit lord. He doesn't seem to mind; if anything, it only makes him happier to have him all for himself.

Behind the doors of the throne room, they can hear the clamor of another battle as their forces hold the demons back; elven voices cry out in pain, barely muffled by the stone walls. Kael’thas pushes it out of his mind and fire twists around his fingers, burning to ashes a felhound before it can close its jaws around Illidan’s wing. There is no point in leaving this battle for another; the soldiers guarding the doors have a duty, and they will die for it if that's what it takes. So will he.

His eyes linger on Illidan, briefly distracting him from the fight. He’s covered in blood, all the same toxic color, making it difficult to say if it’s his or Magtheridon’s. From where he is he can see three gashes bleeding sluggishly on his shoulder, most likely from the pit lord’s claws, and despite the pain he must be in he looks — not happy but _settled,_ content in his own skin in a way he never really is out of the battlefield. His warglaives glow faintly through the blood covering them, and with the tattoos covering Illidan’s body they cast him in an odd, otherworldly glow, both similar and infinitely different from the demons they have faced before.

He’s beautiful.

The thought surprises him, but not for the reason he expects. Kael’thas thought Illidan was beautiful the first time he saw him, fresh out of his own personal hell and looking all the worse for it. He made peace with his own taste in men a long time ago. No, what surprises him is how fast he’s falling; there, looking at this man who never looks as happy as when he's covered in blood, it feels like a blow to the chest.

Quickly followed by a literal one; lost in his brief panic (Kael'thas is used to falling hard and fast, somewhat, but never _that_ hard, or _that_ fast) he doesn't notice Magtheridon's tail, and it hits him straight-on.

The impact knocks the wind out of his chest and sends him flying through the room as if he weighed nothing. Something in his chest cracks, but he collides with the opposite wall before he can begin to worry about a punctured lung. He hits it back first, head second, and is miraculously still conscious (or close enough) to feel the pain when he falls back to the ground in a heap. He lays there for who-knows-how-long, dizzy with pain and the lack of oxygen, watching the room spins uncontrollably through half-lidded eyes.

He can barely make out Illidan through the haze. His soulmate is a blur of green and black through the smoke, seemingly in two places at once at all time, and Magtheridon has eyes only for him — _ha_. He knows how that feels. It means that, for now, the demon is turning his back to him, focused as he is on the biggest threat here.

Kael'thas tries to lever himself on his hands with little effect: his arms shake too hard, and he falls back with a grunt. He can't afford to lay there, not with so many demons walking around with murder on their minds, but try as he might he can't get on his feet. His head throbs at each breath and he can feel blood on the nape of his neck, sticking his hair to the wound.

 _Damn_ , he thinks with all the coherence he can muster. _This is not ideal_.

He's about to roll himself on his back, in the hope that it would make his imminent demise less painful, maybe, when there's a _woosh_ of displaced air a few feet from him, the wet sound of a blade slicing through flesh and of two hooves falling on the ground. He lifts his head as high as it will go, which isn't much, to no avail: his hair obscure his sight, and he lets it fall back with a raspy sigh. He's shaving his head as soon as they get out, damn it all—

“Kael'thas!” Knees hit the ground next to his head and a hand cradles his head gently. He can feel it spread blood on his face and makes a grimace at the thought. Demon blood, _yikes._ There is a muttered _shit,_ barely audible above the chaos, and then, slightly frantic, “Can you stand?”

“With help, maybe,” He says. It comes out kind of slurred, but altogether pretty understandable. He lifts himself on his arms, snarling silently at the weakness of his muscles. He only went airborne for a few seconds, _at most_! That's not a valid reason to give up on him like that.

“Alright. This is fine. You're fine.” The hand leaves his face and takes his arm, hauling him up in one swift movement.

He sways on his feet. The room turns faster, torchlight blurring in a single ring of fire around him as he wills his eyes to focus on his direct surroundings. The hand finally settle on his shoulder, a strong arm looping around his shoulders, and he finds himself leaning against a strong, naked chest.

Well. Alright. Kael'thas is concussed, but he's not stupid, and he could probably recognize Illidan while blind and deaf. Or at least his chest.

It's a damn fine chest.

Kael'thas relaxes in the hold, inhaling the coppery scent of blood and brimstone that emanates from Illidan.

“Any broken bone?” His voice rumbles from above him and directly under his ear.

He hums. “Maybe my ribs. Also my head hurts but it's _fine_ , head wounds bleed a lot, you know?”

“Yes, Kael, I do.” Fondly, Illidan tucks his hair behind his ear and rests his hand on his cheek. “I have to carry you, alright? You can't fight in that state.”

This manages to shock Kael'thas out of his semi-unconscious state. “The hell I can't!” He snaps, straightening suddenly to look Illidan in the eyes. He staggers back and would have fallen again if not for the arm around his shoulders steadying him. He did a presentation on the history of enchantments in the war while drunk, once, he can do this, easy peasy. “How the hell haven't you been impaled by Magtheridon through the back already?

Well, it comes out… mostly intelligible . He'll take what he can get.

It doesn't sway Illidan in the slightest, if the way he shakes his head without a word is anything to go by. Kael’thas doesn’t even have the time to complain before Illidan swipes him off his feet and, holding him like some kind of damsel in distress, flies off.

It takes all of Kael'thas hard-learned composure to keep from throwing up from the movement. He screws his eyes shut and digs his nails in Illidan's shoulder and neck, hissing invectives that would make Rommathblush.

They cross the distance in a matter of seconds, Illidan trying his best to not jostle them when he lands and only marginally succeeding. Kael'thas finds back his footing in the ever-spinning mess of the room and glares at Illidan, with little effectiveness.

“Guard Vashj's back,” Illidan tells him — _orders_ him, more like — before flying off just as quickly as he came.

“You're not the boss of me,” Kael'thas says to his back. Then, he gathers his wits, steps back, and gets ready for whatever demon will be foolish enough to target Lady Vashj.

 

-

 

There's something churning beneath Kael'thas ribs, under the bruising and the dried blood that sticks his clothes to the skin under. He doesn't know what to make of it. It's anger and relief and desire and the terrible, wolf-like joy of surviving when others haven't, all tangled together in an emotional mess that weighs heavy in his chest. It's hard to swallow around it, and it leaves a metallic taste on his tongue, bitter and sweet all at once.

It flares when he looks at Illidan, still high on his victory. He grins, impish and wild, and Kael'thas can almost see the gold around his head when he crowns himself Lord of Outland.

He could fall in love with him on the spot, if he hadn’t already.

Excitement buzzes under his skin and he smiles until it hurts, until everything hurts and he's too happy to care. His soulmark is a comfortable burn on his wrist, as if he were holding it too close to the flames. He looks Illidan in the eyes from across the crowd and presses a quick kiss to it, grinning gleefully around the faint taste of ozone and ash, and Illidan grins right back, and for a moment — for one incredible, breathless moment — Kael'thas isn't afraid of anything.

Vashj rests her hand on his shoulder.

“Are you alright, Kael?”

He waves her off, twisting his grimace of pain into what he hopes is a convincing smile.

“I’m _fine_. Our lord is a damn mother hen, that’s all.”

Vashj is by far too dignified to snort, but she looks pointedly toward the man in question without saying a word.

“He doesn’t look like it, but he is. You have no idea how long it took me to convince him I should fight at his side today.”

She tilts her head to the side, looking thoughtfully at him. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, she says, “Do see a healer for your wounds still, hm? We can’t have you at anything but your best.”

And then she pokes him mercilessly in the ribs, eliciting a pained yelp from him. He gingerly rests a hand on his bruised, probably broken ribs and glares at her. There’s a persistent taste of blood in his mouth and his head still hurts as if it were stuck between an anvil and a hammer; he doesn’t need any more abuse.

“What was that for?”

“Incentive. Unless you want me to get our dear master, so he can bring you there himself?”

Kael’thas thinks back to Illidan taking him in his arms like some blushing bride and flying him through a room, and decides his stubbornness isn’t worth living through that again.

He could use the rest, anyway.

 

Of course, because the universe if an awful place, he doesn’t get it.

Illidan called him and Vashj to the top of the Black Temple as he was making his way to the healers. Not particularly eager to be poked and prodded by well-meaning doctors after the harrowing day he just had, Kael’thas had of course hurried to his soulmate’s side without hesitation.

Which means, when Kil’jaeden appears, Kael’thas is dead on his feet. He’s so tired, in fact, he’s pretty sure he could go to sleep right there and then and that nothing short of necromancy would be enough to wake him up before he got a full week of sleep. The toll of his wounds is starting to make itself known, and he regrets not going to the healers earlier. There isn’t a square inch of his chest that doesn’t hurt, from his bruised skin to the stabbing pain at each breath he takes, and there is precious little of the rest of his body which doesn’t ache, sting or burn in some way or another.

His left foot is fine, he guesses. Apart from that— yeah, there probably are other parts of him that don’t hurt, but he hasn’t found them yet.

He kind of zones out while Illidan is talking, too tired to focus on anything but the steady pulse of his heart in his ear, which echoes in every wound on his body and gives him the irresistible urge to curl in a corner and sleep for a few millenniums. As he does, his eyes drift to the great plains beneath the temple, the copper-red earth and eternal night sky.

A dark sky which seems inexplicably agitated by even darker clouds, gathering above the horizon.

Hellfire Peninsula isn’t in the habit of having storms, or any kind of precipitation beyond ‘rain of blood and entrails’ and ‘ashes’, really. They haven’t seen a single cloud in the weeks they have roamed here: there simply isn’t any water to evaporate into clouds.

He nudges Vashj with his shoulder and jerks his head toward the odd weather. She knows a lot more on the place than he does; maybe it is just a rare occurrence.

“What is this, Vashj? Where did this storm come from?”

At the word ‘storm’, her head whips toward the direction he is pointing, and she hisses what he guesses to be a string of terribly unladylike swears. She takes his wrist and drags him back a few steps and this time it’s his time to swear, pressing a hand to his side in a futile attempt to abate the pain. She notices, of course she does, but doesn’t comment on it beyond a sharp glare.

“Keep your head down, _fool!_ ” She snaps when he glares right back. “Something terrible is drawing near.”

There is virtually nothing in this world that can scare Vashj into such a state — her face openly worried and aggressive, her body taught like the string of her bow, her hands restless at her side. Seeing this, Kael’thas can almost guess what, exactly, is the terrible thing she is alluding to.

His suspicions are unfortunately confirmed when, as the storm rolls over their head, the clouds part around the figure of Kil’jaeden — and he is a terrible sight indeed.

Exhausted beyond belief, hurt and still light-headed with a mild-concussion, Kael’thas physically cannot listen to the demon lord’s words. His very presence is like ice slipping down his spine, so cold it burns, and Kael’thas’ mind feels both awfully quiet and unbearably loud when he rests his gaze on the so-called Deceiver. The ground rumbles under their feet when he speaks; the air, heavy like before a lightning strike, smells of sulfur and burning flesh. It takes everything he has left to stop himself from shaking like a leaf under the intensity of the demon’s presence, and thething isn’t even looking at him.

Illidan, as proud and as insane as ever, stands tall and still in the face of this natural disaster given flesh, teeth barred in a smile and fingers curling at his side with the urge to summon his blades. He doesn’t, although if it is fear or intelligence which stays his hands Kael’thas cannot say, and soon — but not soon enough — Kil’jaeden is gone just as he came, leaving behind the sour taste of demonic essence in the air.

His departure takes a weight off Kael’thas’ shoulders and, at the same time, seems to take all the strength he had left. He slumps against Vashj like a puppet with its strings cut, swallowing hard against the sudden dryness of his mouth.

Illidan strolls toward them. If he is shaken by the encounter, he does an incredible job at hiding it.

“Are you alright?” He asks. “Have you seen the healers?”

Kael’thas doesn’t answer. Instead, he pins Illidan down with a hard look, never flinching at the sight of the fel-fire of his eyes, and after a silent moment he says, “You play a dangerous game, Illidan.”

Illidan’s shoulders don’t quite slump, but he looks slightly to the side. “I— yes.” He looks back at Kael’thas.

Satisfied, although he’s not sure why, Kael’thas stands once again and nods once. “Well, let's get to it then. There's still much to be done if we wish to survive Arthas' troops. Where should we begin?”

Illidan doesn't smile — Kael'thas isn't sure he's capable of that outside of battle, without the adrenaline pumping in his blood. But his lips quirk and his shoulders relax, and when he turns on his heels it's with all the flourish Kael'thas has come to expect of him, none of this subdued uncertainty that tends to plague him when memories of his brother comes back to him.

“Let's start by cleaning this whole mess, shall we? I'd like my stronghold demon-free as soon as possible.”

“As you wish,” Kael'thas says, smiling softly, and doesn't mention the pit lord chained in the basement.

 

-

 

Things don't stop there, of course.

It soon becomes clear that, for Illidan, the Black Temple was only the beginning.He doesn’t take the time to rest following their victory: already he is miles ahead, planning — in this half-cooked way of his — their attack on the Lich King-to-be. And even then it’s only because Vashj made it _eminently clear_ she would rather throw him back in his cell than let him go after Kil’jaeden right there and then.

Channeling his inner Rommath, Kael’thas takes the matter in his own hands. He doesn’t sit on him — Illidan is _by far_ taller and heavier than him so it would be utterly pointless, not to say undignified — but, after a decade of suffering them, he knows his friend’s disapproving glare by heart. He has no qualms directing them on Illidan, and it’s a testament to their efficiency that the man sighs and agrees to at least plan his next move before throwing himself to his death.

Thing is: once he actually sits down to do it, Illidan is a fine strategist. He’s far better at it than Kael’thas, who’s basically been rolling dice to choose troops placements lately. He understands the inner workings of the Legion better than anyone else, knows where and when to strike to deal the most damage, and it is obvious he has fought many battles before.

(The veritable testament to his genius, of which Kael’thas had been _actually warned_ by Vashj, is his quasi-instantaneous understanding of Outland’s topography. This place could hardly be called a cohesive assemblage, let alone a _planet,_ and seems to exist and function with no regard toward logic or even the most basic law of physics. It is a geological anomaly existing purely to spite physicists, held together by black magic and their collective suspension of disbelief rather than gravitation. Calling it a disaster would be an underestimation. And Illidan, insane, _brilliant_ Illidan, has no issue finding his way through the twisting, labyrinthine cliffs and gaping faults of the broken world. All it takes is a poorly drawn map and half a morning of reflection on it before he starts moving their troops around in seemingly nonsensical paths that leads them to safety — or at least away from geographical dangers, as Illidan likes to put them directly on the path of demons pack he then expects them to ‘clean up’.)

But, great as his rare planning skills might be, they are only that: _rare_. Illidan, despite having had ten thousand years to mature, is very much the young upstart Vashj remembers from before the War of the Ancients. His prison sentence and trauma seems to have made the matter worse, if anything else: the demon hunter is a breath away from marching down their troops to Sargeras’ door at all time, and more likely to attack first, think later than actually sit down and plan his actions.

Kael’thas, who no one would have called cautious before, finds himself becoming, with Vashj, the _responsible_ part of the ragtag band of misfits and psychopaths they call an army. Next to Illidan, his awful decision-making abilities seem downright rational — no, _wise_ even! — and his poor impulse control seems like the paramount of carefulness.

Illidan is _very good_ at pretending to have things under control. He always look like he has a greater plan — he might, it’s not like he tells them everything, or anything at all, really — when in truth he is basically running on fumes and, Kael’thas is sure, some kind of demon’s blood-high. Kael’thas aspires to have a similar attitude, some day; for now, he simply looks exactly as stressed as he is, which is to say, _greatly._ It ought to have ceased with the defeat of Magtheridon but, surprise: it got _worse_.

Fortunately, he has advisers. They’re not Rommath, but maybe that’s just as well. Rommath is by far too rational for this whole situation, and right now Kael’thas doesn’t need rationality, he needs _help_.

That’s why as soon as he realized that Illidan wasn’t going to be any kind of help and he couldn’t do everything alone, he went looking for all the blood elves who were both loyal to the death to him and smart about it. He found five; about as many as he expected, considering all the smart ones left with Rommath a month ago.

Solarian and Capernian are both friendly enough, although Solarian is a warlock (which always entails some amount of antisocial tendencies) and a bit too obsessed with her studies of the Void for his comfort. Talking to them about Outland’s magical energies remind him of the Kirin Tor, with a lot more staring at walls and muttering — which often boils down to, ‘ _it shouldn’t be doing that, why is it doing that, what’s going on_ ’.

Thaladred and Sanguinar served together against the Scourge and are the only survivors of their squad. Kael’thas doesn’t know the full story; he’s heard it has something to do with Sanguinar’s seldom-used healing magic and a life debt he owed Thaladred, but it feels like too personal a subject to ask them about it. What he does know, though, is that the both of them have since been joined to the hip. He’s never seen one without the other: whether they are sleeping, eating, or sparring, they are never more than a dozen feet away from one another. He put them in charge of training recruits, and their troops seem to hold them in high regard.

As for Telonicus… well. He’s one of the engineer who helped with their escape from Dalaran, and the woman who Kael’thas carried through the portal is his sister. The man is extremely odd, with a habit of tinkering with anything that looks remotely mechanical and isn’t nailed to the floor. His mind is always three steps ahead of everyone else, taken entirely by some engineering mystery. He seems both aloof and overly energetic, but Kael’thas enjoys his passion, even though he still knows little on such matters.

They’re five very odd and passionate people, as all blood elves tend to be. They’re also all terribly shady, but he’s sure they would die for him, so he trusts that they have at least _his_ best interest in mind, if not Illidan’s.

Their personalities hardly worked well together, at first: Kael’thas, pulled between his role as prince and half his life spent as either a student or a teacher (often both) gave them either too much responsibilities or not enough, and his bad habit of ignoring the advice of others did not go well with the people he had named his _advisers_. Still, with the weight of leadership ever heavier on his shoulders, he had learned to trust them with the things he simply did not have the time or means to do. Kael’thas has never been good at delegating: he had refused more than once to have assistants in his studies or to take an apprentice, and always believed quite strongly that if you want something done right, you ought to do it yourself.

But Outland is far from the Kirin Tor, in ever sense of the term, and Kael’thas is nothing if not adaptable. He wouldn’t say he takes it all in stride, because most of his days are spent despairing at the sheer amount of work to be done before they manage to do anything useful with this disaster they have called an army; but he feels that, if it goes on for some more time, maybe a few years, it could become something he would be proud of.

Staying in the oppressive darkness of Outland for years isn’t what he thought he’d be doing with his life, but there are worse places to be.

Well, no, there really isn’t. Outland is only a handful undead short of Northrend, as hospitable as hell itself and about as hot, too. But the company could be worse, he supposes.

Vashj, of course, is an amazing friend. Once he managed to find her well-hidden sense of humor — which is absolutely ridiculous and subtle enough that, even now, half the time he isn't sure if she's joking or being completely serious — they went from friendly coworkers to best friends at an alarming pace. She's always a welcome sight and fills the impulse control-shaped hole Rommath left in his life.

But who is he kidding? The company he enjoys the most is Illidan's, and no amount of Vashj's general awesomeness can change that.

Each time he catches sight of the demon hunter, his heart misses a beat and he goes light-headed with the rush of affection-aggravation-gleeful surprise that he has started to associate with Illidan. He's still not used to having a soulmate, an actual person at his side rather than a few words on his wrist and an empty feeling behind his breastbone. It never fails to make him smile, cheerful and excited like a child during Winter's Veil.

Sure, his soulmate is a disaster barely held together by rage and panic, but— it's endearing, in its own way. To be fair, there's a lot of him Kael'thas finds endearing. Sometimes Illidan will rest his head on his hand and just look in the distance and Kael'thas will be looking at _him,_ he makes exhaustion looks dashing, he fidgets with his hair when he's thinking about something that annoys him, he never stands still — there's always a part of him twitching, his whole body eager to chase after the Legion — he obsesses over the smallest things and completely ignore others, and when Kael'thas asks about them he looks at him with the most genuine air, saying “I trust you with it”—

Light, he has it bad, doesn't he? No matter what he promised Rommath, he'll never be able to do anything _smartly_ , now. Not when his entire body flutters when Illidan looks at him and it takes all he has to stop himself from pinning him against the nearest flat surface and ravishing him.

What can he say? If Illidan won't do it, he'll take the matter in his own hands.

To tell the truth, Kael’thas isn’t sure where he stands with Illidan. Since the start, his soulmate has kept his distance with him, never letting him out of his sight but never getting closer, either. It’s driving him crazy.

He knew it wouldn’t be easy but really, Illidan has no business making it _this hard._ Some uncertainty was to be expected, considering the last persons Illidan loved locked him under the earth for ten thousand years — which never ceases to boggle Kael’thas’ mind. But as days pass without them exchanging a single words that isn’t work-related, he starts to wonder if maybe his first impression wasn’t that far off. Maybe Illidan really doesn’t want a soulmate — a man like him earned his right to be jaded about the concept — or, at least, not one that happens to be _Kael’thas_.

And if Illidan is half as afraid of abandonment as Kael’thas expects him to be after what he lived through, it wouldn’t be all that surprising that he’d refrain himself from admitting the truth to his soulmate. Kael’thas would never leave him; he has sworn his allegiance to this cause, soulmate or no soulmate. And being away from the object of his infatuation would feel worse than having them near but out of his reach.

What a lovesick fool he makes. He wonders if it wouldn’t be better for Illidan to tell him now, before he gets too attached. He’s sure he’d deal with it more gracefully this way than after months or years of hopeless pinning.

At this point anything would be better than this maddening standstill.

And yet, despite everything, they work… well, they work _well_ together. It's like following the steps of a dance he's learned in his childhood and then forgotten; his feet know the way even though his brain doesn't. It comes naturally to him — not leading, never that, but moving around Illidan and making decisions in a second, with only the slight hitch of Illidan's shoulders to clue him in on what the man wants him to do.

Just like he said, when they met: it's as if they have known each other for their whole life, when in truth Kael'thas has little to no idea of what his soulmate lived through before. Illidan sometimes feels more like a shadow than a person, fleeting at the edge of his sight, never quite enough to hold on to.

It lives him in an awkward place, unbalanced between what he knows and what he doesn't. One second he guesses Illidan's thoughts before he can utter them, and the next he tiptoes around him, unsure of what to say and how to act with this stranger who makes his heart sing and his head ache.

But every so often, when he thinks no one is watching, Illidan glances at him. Kael’thas can’t say he can read his expression, but it’s the same he wears when pouring over new intelligence and unstable spells he found in some dusty grimoire. As if Kael'thas were a mystery waiting to be unraveled. Kael’thas takes some pride in the fact he might be as much of a riddle to Illidan as Illidan is to him.

 

-

 

Soon, they are ready, or as ready as they'll ever be at least. Kael'thas left his advisers to man the ship with Vashj's own, Illidan laid a few more layers of protective spells on their base, and then they were off the Northrend.

Kael'thas thought to send a letter to Rommath to warn him, but decided otherwise. His friend would not benefit from the information, and he would rather not worry him more than strictly necessary with news of even more suicide missions. Although seeing Rommath in Northrend, sleeveless robes and all, would be pretty funny, all things considered.

Unfortunately this is not supposed to be a _fun_ excursion.

Quel'thalas is not known for its snowy climate. In truth, it is perfectly temperate, bordering on equatorial: magic and odd wind currents make sure that winter is little more than a slightly cooler and rainier season, more autumnal than anything else. The same is — was, he supposes, given the present state of the city — true for Dalaran: in all his years at the Kirin Tor, Kael'thas has only seen snow twice there, and only so much as to dust the roofs and vegetation in a thin layer of white.

Suffice to say Northrend is— different.

The northern continent is either bare, grey rocks or snow and often both at once, with small patches of trees that fail to protect anyone from the howling wind. Close to the coast, it spray them with freezing seawater, and deeper in the land it carries snow instead, making visibility poor _at best_.

Kael'thas is cold, damp, and miserable.

And he is one of the lucky ones: he keeps his magic tight around him at all time, and its warmth melted the snow before it could touch him. It still means he has to spend an inordinate amount of with wet clothes while his magic evaporates the melted snow, which is as uncomfortable as it sounds.

His boots, especially, have decided to be permanently wet whatever may happen, an unfortunate consequence of trampling through two feet of snow all day long as they make their way to Icecrown Glacier. It's a miracle — in large part due to his constant use of magic, but _that's_ another whole can of worms — he hasn't had frostbite yet, or that he still has his feet.

It could be worse, he tells himself. Vashj, per example, does not have the chance of having any kind of protection from the cold. She slithers through the snow without a complaint, covered in fur from the waist up and apparently unconcerned by the cold. He knows it's far from the truth. Although she is used to the cold depth of the ocean, water and air are quite different elements and, as a water serpent, she is definitely unused and unprepared for the later, which as a result makes her distinctively cranky and prone to biting her underlings’ heads off. Other nagas become more sluggish and drowsy with the low temperatures but Vashj lives to defy expectations.

Illidan, meanwhile, goes around as shirtless as ever, with no sign of discomfort on his part (but plenty from others, who get cold just _looking_ at him). His half-demonic nature apparently turned him into a living furnace, and an exhibitionist.

Not that Kael'thas is going to complain of course.

Well, yes, he _is_ , but not about _that._ There are, after all, many more reasons to complain, the cold notwithstanding.

One could start with the nerubians, those awful arachnid creatures and their undead king. Spiders are bad enough, with their strange way of walking and unnecessary amount of legs and eyes, but nerubians — as everything in Northrend — were hellbent on taking the uncanny, horrific sight to its maximum. They have lost countless soldiers to their attacks and honestly? Kael’thas is _done_ with them. He wants them gone and burned to the ground like the vermin they are.

Everything on this damn continent wants their head on a plate. The nerubians, of course, do their best to make every step they take an ordeal, sending their skittering troops on unsuspecting scooting parties like something out of their worst nightmares. They're not the only natives, and although most other races prefer to stay far, far away from the madness descending on their lands, they still prove to be a danger when their army comes too close to their dwellings. Kael'thas almost lost a few fingers to the wolvars and, as such, doesn't feel particularly sympathetic toward anything sentient that chooses to remain in the frozen hellscape of Northrend.

Even nature is against them. The local wildlife is completely foreign to them and twice more aggressive for it, unsure of where they stand in the food chain and attacking blindly to find out. The weather itself seems against them, blizzards following at the heels of windstorms, while the air gets colder and colder — if such things are even possible — as they continue onward. Frost gather on eyelashes, dry lips crack and bleed, and frostbites threaten to take more limbs than battle.

And that's without talking about the undead. But no one wants to talk about the undead.

Because there's knowing Arthas went on a continent-wide rampage, and then there's _seeing_ _it,_ in his near-endless army of walking corpses. Human, elves, dwarves, all with barred bones and empty eyes, shambling behind the imposing figures of his generals, whose only difference with their troops is that they are a little smarter and much more enthusiastic in their carnage.

It's a gruesome sight, one that never fails to leave Kael'thas uneasy and nauseous. But there isn't time for disgust; the dead don't sleep and if they are to win this race against time, neither must they.

“I hate this,” Kael'thas says for the third time in as many minutes, trying to get the melting snow off his clothes before he is completely drenched.

Vashj hisses in approbation. Frost gather on her scales and in her hair, creating silvery pattern that glitter softly with her slithering movements. She doesn't pay heed to the beauty of the snow, though; every so often she shakes her head in irritation, muttering curses and promises of violent deaths for Arthas, without whom they wouldn't be here. He can't help but agree with the thought.

They're watching Illidan train a few of their mages in combat, something he is surprisingly adept at. Kael'thas never had formal training — he's an awful team player, preferring to either lead or fight alone, which makes him a poor teacher in military formations. Vashj, on the other hand, have too many arms and not enough legs to teach elves how to dodge and parry with a sword, something Illidan considers crucial to their survival. They technically have duties to attend to, pressing issues to deal with so as to assure their victory, but they have a hard time walking away from the spectacle.

The sight of a dozen scholars stumbling their way through swords tricks is simply too amusing to ignore.

A few of them — those trained by the Kirin Tor — glare at the blades in disgust, probably remembering countless lessons on the superiority of magic on mortal weapons. Most come from Silvermoon's academy of Magi, though, and at least know which end of a sword is the one you're supposed to stab the enemy with. One thing they all have in common, though, is that they appear entirely enthralled by Illidan, following his very order in a heartbeat.

It's something of a theme, here, with blood elves. Kael'thas worried they might doubt his decision to follow Illidan, but it seems that none of them is safe from Illidan's charisma. Or his bare chest.

It's a delightful sight, and he can't blame anyone for ignoring their better judgment because of it. Kael'thas himself is guilty of this; he is, after all, still staring at Illidan as he shows them the right movements, muscles rippling under his scarred skin, instead of doing his work.

“You're drooling.”

He closes his mouth with a _click_ and crosses his arms in a valiant effort to stop himself from pouting.

“I was not. _”_

Vashj chuckles. “Not _yet_.”

He rolls his eyes and pointedly averts his eyes from Illidan. There will be time to gape later, when they aren't knee-deep in snow and dead people.

“Walk with me?” He asks Vashj. She looks down to her obvious lack of feet, then back up at him, and he groans. “You know exactly what I mean, you witch.”

Far from being offended, she looks at him with amusement clear in her eyes. “I do, young prince, but when has that stopped me?”

“Fair enough.”

 

Northrend, as Kael'thas never ceases to point out, is an awful, terrible, _dreadful_ place, but it'll be a cold day in hell — assuming they aren't already there — before they let themselves be beaten down by _nature_.

Fortunately, everything isn't hopeless. For starter, the beast might be strange, deadly and prone to extreme violence, but they are still beasts, and the wild land is full of them. Associated with the conjured food of the mages, they never risk starvation. Kael'thas even has to admit he quite enjoys seal meat.

And, yes, sometimes they bury people and then bury them _again_ because the Frozen Throne won't let the dead rest properly, but it has no influence on the living or at least has yet to corrupt them, and it's the little things, really.

(Kael'thas sometimes wakes up gasping from nightmares where their troops are alive and still decaying like the Scourge, bits of skin and flesh falling in the snow at they talk and joke around. The worst thing is that he can tell they are dreams by the fact that people are joyful and relaxed, where in reality their soldiers are all tense and jumpy, casting fearful glance at every shadow.)

At least that’s what he tries to convince himself of as he gazes upon their war map and sees miles upon miles of rocky, snow-covered desolation between them and their goal.

Someone knocks on the wooden support of his tent. He glances up, expecting one of his scouts, and sees Illidan instead. The demon hunter bows his head to avoid tearing through the fabric with his horns and fold his wings tight against his back, oddly awkward in his carefulness.

Illidan, he suspects, never had to worry about taking too much space before.

“My lord,” He greets, a small smile on his lips. Etiquette would have him call him ‘master’ but he hardly see himself calling his soulmate _that_. At least not in public.

“Kael’thas. Hard at work, I see.”

He comes to stand next to Kael’thas, close enough that they almost — but not quite — touch. Kael’thas gestures to the large map pinned to the table with four daggers, else the northern wind sends it flying all over the place each time someone leaves or enters the tent.

“There is still much to be done if we are to face Arthas’s entire army and live to tell the tale,” He sighs. He looks up toward Illidan and blinks, taken aback, when he sees his soulmate is staring at him rather than at the map. “You will be leaving soon, I suppose?”

Illidan nods, pleased. “Tomorrow, at dawn. Or, well, later this morning.”

“This late already?” Kael’thas glances toward the flaps of the tent, but the piece of sky he can see through the small gap is as dark and cloudy as ever.

“Quite, yes. I expect it to be around two in the morning.”

Kael’thas groans, rubs his hand against his face, and glares at the war map without a word. He has to move their troops where Arthas will expect it the least, has to make sure they will either win or survive or both, ideally, has to give the order to gather more wood for the war machines—

“Kael.”

Illidan’s voice shakes him out of his thoughts. His soulmate rests a hand on his shoulder and gently tips him sideways until he’s resting against him. The gesture is awkward, as if Illidan weren't sure how to touch him — how much strength is too much or too little, how far he can take his chance before Kael’thas put an end to it. Still, it is very nice, and Kael’thas leans into it gratefully, trying to convey how much he likes it without actually having to open his mouth and force words to come out.

Kael’thas can feel his warmth even through his clothes. The feeling is welcome: here he is safe from the wind, but it is still cold enough that he can see his breath in the still air, and exhaustion is not helping him stay warm.

“You need to rest, _alore.”_

Kael'thas hums, noncommittal. Sure, he needs sleep, but he's needed sleep for close to two decades now so that's not saying much. Has he ever been well-rested? He can't remember. Sounds like a myth.

Illidan's sigh ruffles his hair lightly. “Is there anything I could say that would convince you to get some sleep?”

“Unlikely, but I doubt this will stop you from trying,” Kael'thas says. Illidan is hardly the one to tell him off for bad sleeping habits, anyway; he hasn't seen the man take a single nap _once_. He's pretty sure he has been awake for as long as he's been out of his prison.

He mentally adds this particular issue to his “to deal with at a later date” list, which is growing alarmingly long as this campaign progresses.

“The trick, my lord, is to not give him any choice.”

They jump apart like children caught with their hands in the cookie jar as Vashj slithers in. She looks at them in silence for a moment, either judging their lack of subtlety or simply blacking out in exhaustion for a second — you never know with her. Then she snorts derisively, dumps her pile of scouting reports on the table, and points to Kael'thas. “You,” She says, “ _Get some sleep_. And you,” Her fingers move to Illidan, “Make sure he does.”

Illidan chuckles. “Will do, my lady.”

“ _Good_. On that note, I am off to sleep. If I'm not awake by noon tomorrow, send someone. Do _not,_ I repeat, _do not_ wake me up a _second_ earlier for anything less than our own impending doom. _Good night_.”

And then she's gone in a whisper of scales on frozen stones, her words of warning echoing in the now silent tent.

She sure knows how to pass a message.

Kael'thas turns to the pile of reports she left behind. He reaches for the one on the top when he feels an arm looping around his midsection, and before he knows it he is held flush against Illidan's chest, out of reach of the table.

“Hey—!”

“Hush,” Illidan says, mock-admonishing. “You wouldn't want to disobey the lady, would you?”

Kael'thas thinks for a second about what Vashj would do to him in that case and wisely decides he has worked enough tonight.

“Hm, now, let's see...”

Illidan takes a step back and lets himself fall backward, dragging Kael'thas with him. His indignant yelp is cut short when he lands in Illidan's lap, his soulmate having managed to fall into the pile of pillows (and the mattress likely hidden under it, although there is no visual proof of its existence) masquerading as a bed in a corner of his tent.

Never one to miss an opportunity, Kael'thas leans back. His limbs suddenly feel twice as heavy as they did a moment ago, as if his exhaustion has finally caught up to him now that he is no longer standing.

“Comfortable?”

“Quite.” Accidentally, he's pretty sure he couldn't move even if he wanted to.

Illidan rests his chin on the crown of his head, seeming as content as Kael'thas of their present position. The rise and fall of his chest, steady beat of his heart against his back and soft green glow of his tattoos all work to lull Kael'thas into a light doze, neither awake nor really asleep.

Illidan must think him asleep, because after a while he says, “I am such a fool. A weak, lovesick fool.” The words are barely a whisper, clearly not intended to be heard by anyone else. He wouldn't have guessed Illidan to be an out loud thinker, but it makes an awful lot of sense for a man locked with only himself for company for so long.

After a while, Illidan ever so slightly tightens his hold on Kael'thas, as if to reassure himself of his presence but afraid of hurting him — as if he would. As if he _could_. Under his breath, even softer, he adds, “But it feels good to be foolish, sometimes.”

Kael'thas smiles ever so slightly, and soon sleep overtakes him.

 

He wakes up, briefly, barely, when he is moved — the light of dawn, grey and dim, filters through the gap of his tent as Illidan leaves, gently moving him to a better sleeping position as he does. He falls back into the darkness before he can say goodbye — he can only hope it will not be needed.

He only wants Illidan to come back in one piece. Is that too much of a miracle to ask?

 

-

 

With Illidan gone, everything accelerates. Their troops must be trained, dispatched across Northrend, fed, clothed, armed; this alone is a task way out of Kael'thas' qualifications, but he makes do. He is fortunate Illidan inspires such fanatical loyalty to such disparate people, because he could never have done so much without the help of the dozen military strategists who followed in his footsteps.

Most of the blood elven brass was lost in Arthas's assault, and the lower-ranked officers who were suddenly promoted to fill the power vacuum do not have the experience that makes a good general. Nagas might be abysmal at training cavalry units, what with the whole 'lack of legs' thing, but they're great at adapting to a new territory and even thriving in it. Northrend is child’s play compared to suddenly living underwater, he suspects.

Kael'thas finds himself leading more and more missions himself, for many reasons. The first and most important is that they need a leader to rally their troops now that Illidan is out of sight, and Kael'thas is the best candidate for the post. They all know the two of them are soulmates — it's hard to hide such a thing when you realized it in the middle of camp — and the blood elves are already loyal to him to the death, so it's not such a feat to convince the other parts of their army that he's worth it.

But the real reason is that Kael'thas is _bored._ He could as well be the leader they need from his tent, hell, it might be preferable, and definitely less likely to get him killed, but the inactivity is driving him insane. His time at the Kirin Tor was mostly spent studying and napping at inappropriate times, thus completely ruining his sleep schedule. But a military campaign is nothing like an academic career; there are brief periods of intense activity separated by long periods of nothing at all, and the fluctuation keeps Kael'thas in a constant state of boredom and anxiety. There is no way he can prepare for what's to come, because he has no idea what that might be, which means he spends all his free time either running around, micromanaging everything, or stressing about not having anything to do.

And that's when he manages to push Illidan's absence out of his mind, which isn't often, so much of this time is spent stressing over _him_ as well. They don't know each other that much, all things considered, but— they're _soulmates_. Soulmates aren't that important to their culture: they are as likely to be platonic as they are to be romantic, and elves live far too long to just wait their entire life for someone they might meet in their old days. But Kael'thas lived among humans for a long time, and soulmates are a centerpiece of their brief lives, being seen as a holy gift from the Light itself. It's hard to not be influenced by such traditions.

(It’s not, of course, the only reason why he feels so worried. The magic of soulmates is more powerful than most suspects, after all, but Kael’thas is very much not thinking about that right now.)

After a while Vashj got fed up with his ceaseless pacing and throws him out of the camp with a small unit, telling him to go be a nervous mess somewhere that isn’t in her direct line of sight. It turns out that hacking at undead is a great way to relieve pent-up stress, and he always come back from such missions dirty and too exhausted to be worried, which is all he can ask for.

But then it had to _snow_.

Alright, it’s always snowing in Northrend. That’s kind of its thing, isn’t it? But there is snow and there’s _snowstorm._

It’s been coming and going for three days now, the snow falling heavy and fast and burying everything under it. The visibility is worse than ever, which sounds barely possible, and no one in their right mind would get out of the relative safety of their tent to brave the elements.

Kael’thas sure _wanted_ to, but he’s not stupid. So he waits, staring at the documents strewn all over his desk until the words blur in front of his eyes. It’s not helping.

There are only so many times he can read a report before it makes him want to rip off his own eyes. The problem is that reports are all he has to entertain himself currently: with the blizzard going on outside, it’d be madness to send anyone out, so their war is put on hold for a moment. Which means Kael’thas is bored.

And Kael’thas does not deal well with boredom.

The wind howls outside his tent, making the wooden structure sway and crack under the pressure. It is reinforced by magic, but that only assures that it won't fall on his head at any moment. It does nothing to stop the chill, and snowflakes drift through the gaps in the fabric and come melt on his clothes.

Kael'thas is sitting cross-legged with nothing more between the cold, hard ground and him than a thin sheet of fabric, on which was carefully painted an intricate arcanic pattern. He’s good at it — he’s good at many things, when it comes to magic — but, to tell the truth, he has never been much of an arcanist, and it shows in the ways the circle looks almost sloppy, drawn precisely but as if in a rush.

Thing is, arcane is a school of magic which relies heavily on precise spells, invocations and rituals; it is order in its purest form, magic leashed and tamed. His pyromancy professor used to compare it to a box, useful but lacking in versatility. It is a magic of thought, depending on the knowledge and imagination of the mage who wields it to reach its full potential. It's less of an element and more of a _tool_ : although pure arcane is a powerful magic all on its own, its main use is to bend _other_ elements to the caster's will — to order them into something usable.

Fel, on the other hand, is pure chaos, neither bad nor good on its own. Its negative connotations mostly come from the fact that Arcane is seen as the “main” school of magic at the Kirin Tor, the base from which all other magics come. In and on itself it is nothing more or less than change; volatile, unpredictable, uncontrollable.

(The Legion actually use a strange mix of death and fel magic, which the mages who study it — Kael'thas included, and he's had the occasion to see Fel in action a _lot_ — have taken to calling it “corruption”. It's fitting, and it makes them feel cooler when writing about it.)

Fire, Kael’thas’ preferred element, has been proved (by himself, in the most controversial essay he’s ever published, and he’s very proud of that) to draw from Fel magic. It is, after all, the most chaotic of all elements, at least in magic. You do not _control_ fire: you cast your spell and hope for the best. It takes an iron will and more instinct than knowledge to be a competent pyromage.

Kael’thas understands rules and laws, he learns them quickly, but only so he can bypass them more easily. He’s one of the best mages alive today; arcane is _easy_ for him. But it’ll never feel as natural as fire, which sometimes feels easier than breathing; it is wild as he is wild, free as he wished to be free, dangerous and beautiful at once.

(One day, he will take the time to finally learn to use Fel magic, rather than just consume it. He has the feeling he’ll take to it _very well_.)

Fire molded him just as he molds fire; and just like arcanic laws have never dealt well with fire, Kael’thas finds arcane itself stifling and restrictive.

Or at least that’s the conclusion he’s reached. Otherwise it means he’s just too impatient to do arcanic rituals correctly, and that won’t do at all.

It doesn’t matter, anyway. His rituals _always_ work, even when they’re not up to par with the Kirin Tor’s aesthetic criteria. This one is a mental projection spell: almost teleportation, but not quite. What could go wrong, really?

Kael’thas closes his eyes and intones the words of the spell. When he opens his eyes once more, he knows they now glow a bright bluish-purple — the magic pulls faintly at the nerves, like using a muscle after a long inactivity. It’s been a while since he’s channeled so much arcane magic.

Quietly, he says, “Arthas Menethil.”

And just like that, the ritual is complete, the spell cast.

The world whooshes past him, the camp and the blizzard blurring into the distance as he flies through Northrend unburdened by a mortal body. Then, as suddenly as it started, it stops, and he is left standing in a calm, frozen field. The change of path inspires a vague feeling of nausea, as if his mind knows he should feel queasy but his body doesn’t.

In front of him is Arthas, who looks at him with a mixture of surprise and suspicion. Kael’thas folds his hands behind his back and stares right back, taking in the washed-out, weary figure of the former prince.

“Sunstrider,” Arthas says, in a way another would say a particularly fool word. “I thought I was finished with you lot.”

“Well you were wrong, as usual,” Kael’thas replies, aggravated.

“What do you _want_?”

Kael’thas tilts his head to the side, finding back his cool under the pretense of thinking about it. “My father and home back? The revival of my entire people? My sword through your filthy, black heart? A good apple pie? There are so many options, I don’t know which to choose.”

Arthas’s hand falls on the pommel of his cursed runeblade. His lips crack when he sneers, but they don’t bleed — he would need a beating heart for that, and Kael’thas doubts he still has one of those.

“You’re here to threaten me, then.”

“Not really.” It’s the truth: to be quite frank, he doesn’t know _why_ he’s here. In a breath Kael’thas is closer, close enough to stare into Arthas’s eyes. They’re the same height. It’s funny how he never realized that before. “The odds are not in your favor, young prince.”

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t.”

“You’re afraid, then.”

“Of you?” He chuckles, humorless. There is too much hate in him, burning low and dark like the rubble of his home, for the icy grip of fear.

Arthas crosses his arms over his armored chest, the movement too loud and grating to his ears in the deathly quiet surrounding them. His eyes are empty and cold, devoid of the smugness Kael’thas expected to see, and he holds himself unnaturally stiff, far from his usual swagger. It makes it clear that the young prince and paladin he used to know really did die fighting the Scourge, leaving behind a shadow of his former self; a copy of frost and blood, as much a ghost as any of his undead soldiers.

Light, but knowing who Arthas used to be only make him hate what he became even more.

He was a good man, once. This whole situation feels like a betrayal, a knife dug into the still-bleeding wound of his grief. How dare he stand in front of Kael'thas, careless and silent, after what he's done? How dare he burn down Silvermoon, thread over the ashes of Quel'thalas, draw the blood of all his people, and _keep going_? Kael'thas can barely get up in the morning with the weight of his responsibilities bearing down on him; it's not right that guilt should be lighter on Arthas's shoulder. It's not _fair._

If he's learned anything, it's that life has never been fair.

(They were friends, once.)

“I’ll see you hanged if it’s the last thing I do, Arthas,” He says, and it’s not a threat — it’s a promise. “I suppose I only wished to give you a warning, or something like it. My lord is not a kind man, and neither am I. This is not a war you will win.” A moment. “This is not a war you will survive.”

“I'm not afraid of you, and I'm not afraid of _him,_ either.”

(“ _You might die.”_

_A laugh, bright, tension hidden under half-believed carelessness. He says, “I'm not afraid,” and means it; he's never been afraid of dying, never believed it would happen to him._

_Maybe he was right. Maybe he was wrong. It doesn't matter anymore; death has never been the thing he should be worried about._ )

Kael'thas closes his eyes as almost-physical pain stabs his chest, golden hair and blue eyes so alike his own flashing in his mind before he breathes deeply and lets the memory go. Half opening his eyes, he sighs softly, and his mouth twists into a sad half-smile. “I know. I don't need you to be.”

And then, with one last look to the expressionless face of the other prince, he lets go of the spell. The world starts going to pieces in front of his eyes, like a mirror falling apart in slow-motion, and soon enough he is back to his tent.

He's been crying, he realizes. There are tears frozen in his lashes, tracks of frost running down his face. Kael'thas snarls — rage and grief mixing together into one ugly, painful mess stuck in his throat — and rubs his cheeks until they are red and stinging and any trace of misplaced sadness is gone in a cloud of steam.

(Who is he crying for, anyway? Him, with his broken crown digging into the vulnerable skin of his throat, his hands covered in the blood of all the elves whose death he was powerless to prevent, the king of a kingdom of ashes ghosts? Or Arthas, the friends he will have lost thrice, when they went their separate way, when he fell to the Scourge and came back a force of destruction and death, and when he will finally fall to Illidan's blades?)

He rips the arcane circle from under him and holds it in a white-knuckled grip while flames devours the fabric until all there is left of it is a small pile of ashes. The icy Northrend wind finding its way through the gaps of his tent sweeps it away, and he is left with empty hands, stinging eyes, and a fire in his chest.

Arthas will _burn_ , and the whole Legion with him.

 

-

 

“Behind you!”

Kael’thas whirls around and sets Felo’melorn aflame with a brush of his fingers before plunging it in the belly of an abomination. He drags it all the way up to its throat, bones and putrefied flesh giving away under the force of the blow, then rips it out with an awful squelching sound. He cuts the monster’s head clean off its shoulders with a last swipe of the sword and the abomination drops to the ground; the ground shakes at the impact and threatens to send him sprawling, his feet almost slipping when they shift on the frozen stone to keep him upright.

He nods gratefully to Sanguinar, who shakes his head in exasperation but keeps close to him all the same. Kael’thas is pretty sure he’s been assigned a bodyguard whether or not he likes it, but he has a hard time complaining about it. The ground splits open under the paladin’s feet, golden light spilling like lava from the cracks, and the ghouls he’s facing screeches in agony at its touch. He’s not used to large battlefields, not in the way his soldiers are, and there is something inherently reassuring with the presence of the Light at his side when they are facing such an army.

There is no end to the undead horde that he can see. They swarm around him, groaning and screeching, a writhing sea of horror. Worst of all is the bone-chilling light in the depth of empty orbits, peeking through flaking skin and from behind broken ribs. Necromancy feels like drowning in ice cold water — like losing himself in the freezing darkness, like the air itself is no longer safe for him to breathe. It’s everywhere, the sweet-dusty scent of decay sticking to his throat and the pervasive feeling of _wrongness_ , of something unnatural and terrible crawling its way up his spine and under his skin.

This is corruption, pure and simple — not death in itself, which is not _wrong_ as much as it is _alien_ , foreign in the way stillness is foreign to constant movement. The real corrupting force at work here is the Legion, whose bloody handprint can almost be seen on each reanimated corpse, dragging down the corpse-pale face of Arthas. Kael’thas catches glimpse of the fallen prince across the battlefield, his skull-adorned armor a permanent black spot in the corner of his sight. He can feel those death-infused eyes on him despite the distance, like the cold of steel on the back of his neck. Arthas used to be wary of magic, even once he became a paladin, and he embraced the warmth of the light wholeheartedly. It is ironic that he would become this; unholy, cursed, death folded neatly between his hands in the form of Frostmourne’s jagged edges, the very abomination he fought to rid the world of.

It sets Kael’thas on edge, that constant feeling of wrongness surrounding him. Makes him more likely to slip up — more likely to make mistakes he can’t afford, not right now, with Illidan running against time and death far beyond his reach.

For one wonderful, timeless second, Kael’thas wishes he was back at the Kirin Tor, threatening to punch Professor Leicester in the face if she dared to steal his funding.

The daydream breaks as soon as it forms; he has to sidestep a ghoul, which stumbles past him and falls to the ground in a clattering of bones, Thaladred’s axe embed into its back. The warrior rips it out with a snarl, rotates on himself and swings it with all his considerable strength into the skeletons crowding behind him. Three of them crumbles to the ground, reduced to pieces by the blow, but many more still advance, clacking their jaws in a semblance of a cackle as they go.

Thaladred turns to Kael’thas. He’s lost his helmet in the battle, and he’s sweating despite the deathly cold — or maybe it’s blood, making his hair stick to his forehead like that. There is no obvious wound on his face but his eyes have a faint golden glow to them, the remnant of a healing spell cast in the heat of battle. Sanguinar always use too much magic when it comes to healing Thaladred.

“My lord!” He calls out, shifting so he can cover Kael’thas’ back. He sees Sanguinar taking his left, close enough to help but not so much that he’d risk getting caught in his destructive spells. A zombie gargles as it is set on fire, and Kael’thas shakes his tingling-burning fingers before he turns toward his lieutenant. “We’re outnumbered — at least four to one. Dumb as these creatures are, we cannot win this.”

A part of him rebels at the thought. This is both a matter of necessity and of pride — the later which, he must admit, might be his biggest concern — and the idea of retreating leaves a sour taste in his mouth. But Kael’thas is more than the sum of his impulses and he knows there is no victory to be won today, only death, and even then it is unlikely.

He has a duty to his people first.

With a frustrated grimace he swings Felo’melorn around, ridding it of blood. “Call the retreat.”

Thaladred nods. He looks relieved, and still disappointed, as if he knows it is the best option but also the one he likes the least. Kael’thas understands the feeling. He strides off, swinging his axe one-handed as he gestures toward their messengers, and soon enough horns sound the retreat.

“Are you ready?”

There isn’t much that can be seen of Sanguinar’s blood-covered face but his savage grin, but it is enough. “To fight our way through the swarm until Arthas ceases to toy with us and lets us go?” He huffs. “Boy, am I ever.”

Sanguinar huffs, the closest he ever comes to a laugh.

 

Thing is, despite Kael'thas' bravado, they are very much losing this war, one battle at a time.

Illidan's army is basically made of a handful of outcasts; the blood elves were barely half of what they were before the Scourge, number and strength wise, and the nagas have never been numerous to begin with. Arthas, on the other hand, has an infinite supply of troops in the forms of all those his army strikes down in battle, raised from their shallow grave; it is an effective recruiting strategy and one hell of a psychological weapon, and it only gets more powerful as time passes.

They fight teeth and nails for _stalemates_ , unable to snatch a single victory from the jaws of death. They might not always lose ground but Arthas _never_ does. He advances, implacable as death itself, while they scramble for a way to keep him at bay for a few days more. At this point they aren't fighting a war anymore: they are buying time.

All Kael'thas can hope is that it will be enough.

Vashj hisses from where she sits next to him, two of her arms in a sling and pieces of arrows laid out before her. He snaps out of his dark thoughts and offers her a smile, small as it is, which does not seem to reassure her. Lady Vashj is not one to be placated by anything; she is a creature of the sea, and no storm has ever been stopped by a half-sincere smile.

“What is it, boy?” She snaps. He doesn't hold her tone against her. This has been a stressful few months for all of them, although it feels like infinitely more to him. She has every right to be short-tempered.

“I—”He sighs, just as frustrated as she is, and waves the stack of letters he's holding. Scouting reports, each day more dreadful. “All we're doing here is _stalling_ and it's important, I know it is, but— hell, Vashj! I don't wage wars to _stall_. I _win_ them.”

“How can you tell? You've never fought a war before.”

He glances at the scars marring her serpentine body, many jagged lines where her scales grow crooked or stopped growing at all. It is impossible to forget the so-called handmaiden has been a warrior for as long as she has been alive, which is already longer than Kael'thas's _entire civilization_ has existed.

“You're right, I haven't.” He lets the letters fall in his lap, the words burned in his retinas after reading them over and over. “But inexperience is no excuse for _failure_.”

“Anyone else would say it is.”

“Dear lady, do I look like _anyone else_ to you?”

Vashj studies him in complete silence for a moment. He has to refrain from squirming under her gaze. Then, when she is satisfied with what she sees, she says, “No, I suppose you don't.”

He thinks he hears her mutter, “Guess that's what it takes to be Illidan's soulmate” but he chooses to ignore that part.

She goes back to her arrows, assembling them in near-silence and occasionally hissing something in naga — he can't speak it to save his life, but he understands more of it each passing day, thanks to the time he spends with Vashj. Most of her muttering is directed at the poor quality of her arrowheads, or simply irritated insults toward the Scourge, in which troops' bodies she has left most of her stock. She prefers to make her arrows herself, but she has no qualms complaining about it.

Kael'thas loves how comfortable they are together, that she would let herself show this side of herself to him. She likes to appear in control, as calm as a windless sea, but he would be a fool to forget the things that lurk under the surface. Like her temper.

 _Light_ , does Vashj have a tempter.

She says something terribly rude about whoever is responsible for arrowheads. Kael'thas hides his smile behind his papers, but he isn't as successful in smothering his chuckle and she turns to glare at him. It doesn't have much effect: he is far too used to it by now. Still, as merciful as ever — and sympathetic of her frustration, which can't be made better by the constant state of exhaustion they're both in — he looks down toward the reports. He needs to actually understand what is written on them if he wishes to make good on his words and win this war, even though prior tries have been far from successful.

Thirteenth time's the charm, he hopes.

 

-

 

Illidan would consider himself a great warrior, if not a perfect one. He definitely has won his fair share of battles, and he's known for his capacity to think in the heat of the moment, always a step before his opponent. Still, he's not stupid. He knows he's too hot headed, too much of a solo player, and Vashj often reprimands him for not understanding where his limits are (which, contrary to popular opinion, he does) and staying behind that line (which he _doesn't_ ). Illidan is usually inclined to believe this is what makes him such a good fighter — not the lack of plan, which has come to bite him in the ass numerous times before, but the will to surpass himself, no matter what.

But perhaps she's right about one thing. Perhaps he does have the unfortunate habit of setting his limits farther than they actually are, and crossing them even further still.

More importantly, perhaps she is right in saying it will be his downfall.

See, Illidan is suited to demon hunting. He is quicker than most of them, too unpredictable for them to counter soon enough, ruthless, ready to do whatever is necessary to put an end to the Legion. He's been trained for it, he's good at it, he _enjoys_ it. Undead hunting? Not so much. His eyes, keen as they are, are trained to look for Fel, not death magic, which feels inert and cold, barely active enough to see. His momentum is always a little too much or too little, trying to compensate for flesh and exoskeletons which are simply not there. What the Scourge lacks in strength, it makes up in sheer number and dirty tricks: plague bombs and swarms of ghouls are more than a fair match to the world-ending power of Kil'jaeden's troops.

Each fight against Arthas' monsters leaves him feeling off-kilter, unbalanced in a way he hasn't felt since he was learning to fight for the first time. Not enough to be dangerous, but— worrying, nonetheless.

Still, the Lich King is — or was — one of the Legion's minions. He won't be the first he's killed, nor the last.

Illidan can do this.

 

Illidan cannot do this.

Each blow he lands on Arthas' plate armor sends ice crystals flying around, unnaturally sharp to the point they leave fiery trails of blood in their path. He, on the other hand, does not have such protection — he _can't_ , unless he is fine with sealing his fel magic away or letting it slowly eats through his inner organs. He is fel-touched as any Legion-born creature, now, and his body produces more fel than it has been made to deal with.

Without a mean to get rid of it, he risks an overdose — fel poisoning, which he has seen warlocks succumb to a few times as they tried to leave the practice behind them. It is not a good way to die, if such a thing even exists.

The ambient magic that exists wherever living things do has proved to be a sufficient mean to balance the fel in him in the past, but direct contact with the outside air is needed for that. It has never bothered him before — he likes his chest very much, he's worked a lot for it — but, thinking about it, he should have expected the whole 'no upper armor possible' thing to become an issue later on.

The undead prince doesn't have such a problem. Protected as he is, he can attack Illidan from the front and endure the blows — and why wouldn't he? Illidan would do the same if all his nerves had died from lethal frostbite, too.

(He actually has no idea if Arthas can't feel pain or if he can but simply chooses to ignore it. Both are likely, and the answer really depends on whether or not he is actually undead or simply looking very much like it.)

Whatever the cause, the result is the same: Illidan is panting and bleeding for many wounds — most shallow, one worryingly deep in his right side — and Arthas isn't even panting. Although, once again, this could be due to the fact that he may or may not be breathing.

It bears repeating that Illidan is not an idiot. He figured out this fight was hopeless at some point around the first blow Arthas has taken without flinching. But he can hardly turn back now, even if Arthas let him, which he won't. If Arthas lives —or, at least, keeps existing in his current, non-dead state— his battle against the Legion will get significantly harder, and potentially impossible to keep fighting before the Lich King has been dealt with first.

And if Arthas lives—

If Arthas lives, the blood elves won't be avenged. _Kael'thas_ won't be avenged. And if he isn't avenged, he will not know peace.

(He has the sneaking suspicion Kael'thas can hold a _mean_ grudge.)

Rivers of blood have been shed by this man. If he looks closely, he can almost see the hundreds of souls trapped in his cursed sword, struggling to get free. He is the only one responsible for the massacre and yet, Kael'thas still feel this blood is on his hands, too.

It is not a burden he should be carrying and Illidan intends to free him from it. Ideally by putting his two blades through Arthas' rotting chest as many times as necessary until he stops moving.

But Illidan is covered in blood and it is his own, all of it. Frostmourne hums, so low it seems to echo in his bones, in his chest where his heart is slowing down, frost digging into it with each drop of blood the cursed blade consumes.

This is not a fight he can win.

(There hasn't been a lot of fights he could win, lately.)

All he can do is buy time and hope it will be enough.

 

-

 

“We are all responsible for something, big or small,” Kael'thas had told him, an off-hand comment as they discussed priorities and if the right choice was to sacrifice one man for the fate of the world. A heavy subject, for sure, but neither of them were known for their fondness for smalltalk. “You have chosen to hold the world on your shoulders and now you feel responsible for it — and you are. But me? I didn't choose this, it was given to me.”

He had sighed, shuffled through his stack of reports, and continued, “I didn't choose this— this _burden_ , but now it is mine to carry all the same. My people are my responsibility, as the death of the Legion is yours. I will do everything in my power — _everything_ — to do what my duty dictates of me.” He'd smiled then, a soft, grief-stricken thing, and looked at Illidan. He had to crane his neck to do so. It was funny, in a way, but mostly it had just made Illidan want to lift him, pin him to the nearest flat surface, and ravish him, which were not thoughts best suited to strategy meetings. He could almost feel Vashj's disapproving stare burning on the back of his neck through the tent and all the way from the other side of the camp.

Kael'thas' next words had surprised him, both because he had gotten lost in his (delightful and terrifying) daydream and because he had thought his lieutenant had gone back to his work.

“We are quite similar in this, I think.” At Illidan's curious head tilt, he had explained, “This— will to do everything we can to save those we care about. But you care about everyone— you might try to hide it, but sacrificing everything to save the world is not something done by the apathetic and cynical.”

Illidan thought himself pretty selfish, actually. He sought revenge more than anything else. The people he was trying to save could fit on one hand — his brother and Tyrande, whom he still loved, against his better judgment. Vashj and the nagas she had pledged to his service. His soulmate, of course, and the blood elves, because it would kill Kael'thas to lose his people and he had made a promise which he was not keen to break. And Akama's people, too, because they did not deserve to suffer from their leader's questionable moral sense, and—

Alright, maybe Kael'thas had something of a point there. Curious, he had asked, “Who do you care about, my prince?”

Kael'thas hadn't had to think about it for a second. “You. Vashj. Rommath. My people, by duty.”

“You love them, though.”

“Yes.” Kael'thas looked down once again, his blue eyes glinting like cold steel in the gloom. “But would I sacrifice everything for them, if it wasn't my duty?”

It should have been a rhetorical question, but somehow it wasn't. Kael'thas expected an answer from him, and he gave him one: “No.”

Another smile, this one devoid of joy, satisfied, sharp as a knife. “Indeed not.”

Kael'thas was not one for undue sacrifice. Illidan, soft hearted as he was — as he _is_ — could see himself fall in love with that, and it terrified him.

Still does.

But this is not the only thing he remembers from this discussion. Mostly, he remembers what Kael'thas _meant_ : sacrifices are done for the things you held dear, and what you sacrifice for whom says everything about what you consider your duty.

Illidan is saddened but not surprised to find that his soulmate, the very beat of his heart, the light in the eternal darkness of his prison sentence, apparently ranks lower than the death of the Legion on his list of priorities.

“Kael'thas,” He sighs, his blood sticky where it's congesting in his throat, the cold going from unbearable to pleasantly numb around his open wounds, slowly swallowing him whole. The wind howls around him, ripping his difficult breaths from him and his last words with it. “I'm sorry.”

 

-

 

 _Kael'thas. I'm sorry_.

Kael'thas head snaps up. The words echo in his mind like a dream, half-faded already, but he knows he has heard them right. And he recognizes that voice, soft as it was.

 _Illidan_.

The thought is immediately followed by another, as panicked but much more exasperated as well:

_What have you done?_

They haven’t met all that long ago, but spending most of his days and nights alongside his newly-discovered soulmate has given Kael’thas what he believes to be a pretty good understanding of Illidan’s personality. He is touch-starved but afraid of looking vulnerable (and bad at hiding it); he sees planning as a necessary evil, and even then only partakes in it superficially, too restless to strategize as careful as Kael’thas thinks he ordinarily would; he was deeply changed by his imprisonment and doesn’t seem to fully realize it.

He is, first and foremost, a gigantic mess who’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission or, worst of all, _help_. Kael’thas has a gnawing feeling these words are not unrelated to that.

Vashj looks at him curiously. Kael’thas doesn’t meet her eyes, jaw working uselessly as he looks for the right words. What is he supposed to say, anyway? _I’m pretty sure our leader and friend went and got himself killed because he was too damaged to trust us with his fight_? There is no good way to approach this.

Tales say a soulmate’s death is the worst pain anyone can ever go through. His father hadn’t been able to describe it; he had gotten this faraway look in his eyes, like he couldn’t remember, like he didn’t want to remember, but Kael’thas— Kael’thas remembered. Still does, to this day. There is nothing on this world which could erase from his memory the sight of his father crumbling to the ground, screaming, crying, clawing at his chest until blood ran down his fingers, until he got worse — until he got _quiet_ — until all that was left were his ragged breaths, only broken by gasping sobs and small, keening noises. The royal healer had come, white as a sheet and hands shaking, to tell them of his mother’s death, and Kael’thas had cried but Anasterian—

Well, Anasterian already knew, and he had never been quite the same since.

So Kael’thas expected something else than a squeeze in his chest and a lump in his throat. But one can become desensitized to pain, or so they say — maybe that’s what happened. The world ripped his heart out of his chest already, trampled it and left it on the ground, bathing in the blood of his people, his _father_. It would makes sense that whatever fills his chest now wouldn’t know how to react to the death of his soulmate.

Or — and his heart, the treacherous thing, skips a beat at the thought — _Illidan is still alive_.

“Shit,” He finally manages to say. “Illidan’s alive.”

Vashj looks, if anything else, more confused than before.

“I wasn’t sure of that just now!”

Her puzzled look does not go away. Kael’thas shakes his head. “I don’t— I— I’ll be back, alright? Just— Hold on for me, will you?”

And before she can ask him to explain himself, or act rationally, Kael’thas is gone. To hell with planning, his soulmate needs him, _now._

He runs straight toward the edge of the cliff they were following. Someone behind him screams a warning which goes unheard as Kael’thas whistles sharply and—

Jumps.

He allows himself half a second to panic as his feet leave the ground and there is nothing under him but the great, yawning abyss and the jagged rocks far, far below. In this half-second he hangs weightless in the air, and then gravity takes back its hold on him and he plummets to the ground—

For a grand total of another, heart-stopping second. His fall is cut short as he slams into the warm body of Al’ar who sweeps under him just at the right time. His companion lets out a piercing shriek, his own form of greeting, followed by a crooned query. Kael’thas digs his fingers in the smoldering feathers of his back and lets himself fall forward, resting his forehead against the back of the phoenix’s neck.

“Find him, my friend. For the love of Light, _please_ , find him — before it is too late.”

Al’ar trills in both acknowledgment and reassurance and carries them away, toward the frozen emptiness of Northrend, leaving in his wake a trail of embers and astonished looks and _Vashj_ , who swears under her breath before she urges their troops to keep going.

 

Below them the scourge stands still, like mold spreading over the mountainside. The eternal darkness of Northrend is illuminated by their eyes; thousand of ice-blue pinpricks of light, all turned toward the highest peak of Icecrown.

The Frozen Throne.

Kael’thas stares at the writhing mass of undead, searching for a glimpse of fel-green light, but he already knows this is not where he will find it. If Illidan has fallen, it is nowhere else but at the gates of the citadel.

The wind at this altitude is colder than death itself and sharper than any blade that brings it. It slices through Kael’thas, burrowing deep into his bones, until his face is numb and there is frost gathering in his eyelashes. Al’ar is an almost unpleasantly warm presence under him, each pulse of his heart sending a wave of warmth into his feathers which dissipates into embers carried away by the wind. Kael’thas takes solace in the slight pain of it; the sting of sensation coming back to some limbs while others lose them once again to the wind. He keeps his mind focused on this cycle of cold-warm-cold until he can’t think about anything else and his fear falls from his consciousness, relegated to his shaking fingers and shallow breath.

Illidan is rather like the cold, in that way. He has found his way to Kael’thas’ heart in moments and stayed there, demanding all of his attention whether it is by his presence or his (just as painful) absence.

Nothing is easy, with them in the equation. All Kael’thas can hope for is that Illidan will survive this day, so that they can attempt to make it a little less hard, at least.

Al’ar shakes him out of his cold-induced doze with a sharp cry, and he looks down. There, down below, half hidden in the snow—

Illidan.

His stomach drops, both at the sight — distant as it is — and at the way the phoenix suddenly dives down. He extends his wings seconds before hitting the ground and Kael’thas immediately drops from his back. His legs ache at his landing and he ignores it, ignores everything but his soulmate, lying in the half-melted snow.

He falls to his knees next to Illidan. His hands flutter above his unconscious form, an inch from his skin but never touching, afraid to hurt him. He is _covered_ in blood, much more his own than Arthas’, and his wounds still bleed sluggishly, some of them emitting a strange, blue smoke which he makes sure not to touch.

He drags his eyes from the bleeding mess of his chest and looks at Illidan’s face instead.There is no light piercing through his blindfold. It hurts even more than the proof of the fight which put him in this state. Kael’thas swallows around the lump in his throat; it feels a little like choking and a lot like he’s about to sob.

His hands finally come to rest on either side of Illidan’s face, gently caressing his cheekbones with his thumbs. He tries to swallow once more and only manage a choked sob as he bends over the body and presses his forehead to Illidan’s, his eyes closed so that his tears will not escape them.

“You _fool_ ,” He whispers, almost too quiet for even him to hear. “You reckless, beautiful fool.”

The wind, which had died down as they had landed, curls its icy fingers in his hair and around his neck. It brushes his lips—

No.

The puff of air against his lips is slight but warm. He freezes. Waits.

Illidan is breathing.

Scrambling back, Kael’thas presses his hands to Illidan’s chest, now mindless of the blood and wounds, and feels the rise and fall of it, slight as it is. He presses harder, spreads his fingers until Illidan’s heartbeat echoes in each of them and he can feel the ribs extend ever-so-slightly at each breath.

 _He’s_ _alive_. Unconscious and lying into a pool of his own blood, but _alive_. It’s more than he dared to believe moments ago. It feels a little like a miracle.

But he won’t stay that way for much longer unless Kael’thas finds a way to get him to safety.

There is no way Kael’thas can carry him. Illidan is almost two feet taller than him and about twice as heavy, and magic isn’t an option here. Fel is incredibly good at disrupting magic, making it either completely inefficient or _too much,_ and Illidan is nothing if not a person-shaped Fel catalyst. If Kael’thas were to cast a levitation spell on Illidan, his tattoos would either repel the magic like a magnet, or devour it, draining Kael’thas entirely in a matter of minutes.

It’s very convenient when it comes to enemy mind magic, less so when trying to save his ass from deadly frostbites.

And it’s not like he can wait for rescue, either. There’s blood in the snow, _so much blood_ , Illidan is bleeding far too much still. His wounds are too severe; he would be dead ages before news would reach base camp.

Al’ar— Al’ar is powerful in his own right, but he too depends on Kael’thas’ magic to stay in this plane, and as such his strength is limited. He can’t carry them both.

 _Damned if I do, damned if I don’t_ , Kael’thas thinks, and his fingers dig into Illidan’s sides. This draws a pained moan from him, and his eyes snap back to his face.

Never in his life has Kael’thas had to make a list of his priorities and put himself in the second position, but there’s a first time for everything. He bends down, quickly presses his lips to Illidan’s, and stands up.

He whistles once more. Al’ar’s echoing call responds; moments after, the phoenix appears from the heavy clouds like a literal ray of sunshine, landing next to him.

“Al’ar, _take him home_!”

The phoenix lets out a piercing cry in refusal, but Kael’thas shakes his head and puts his hand on his companion’s head, between his eyes.

“You _must._ I can survive; he cannot.” What he means by that is rather: _I am expendable and he is not._ Kael’thas pushes his head away, his touch gentle but firm. “ _Go_.”

Al’ar fidgets, snapping his beak, disapproving but unable to disobey him. He casts one last burning look at Kael’thas before carefully taking Illidan between his golden talons and flying off with one last mournful cry.

Kael’thas watches him until he disappears in the distance, the last embers dispersing in the cold wind, and he is truly and completely alone.

Above him, the Frozen Throne stands, all shadow and ice. Below him, the frozen emptiness of the mountainside stretched to infinity, all darkness and howling wind.

The Sunstriders are those who walk the day— the light-bearers, the relentless followers of the sun’s path in the sky. Like the sun, they are the guides of their people, and they can no more stop or rest than it can. _Deth’ala asto’re_ — the only way is forward.

So Kael’thas does what the blood elves do best: he swallows back his pain, and starts walking.

 

After two hours, he stumbles into a crevice. He catches himself before he can fall and break his neck; the impact jars his arm and leaves it shaking and aching. But he’s not dead, and if he’s not dead, he has to move. So he drags himself back up again, and he keeps walking.

After three, a snowstorm rises, unnatural and sudden, an outward manifestation of the new power ruling over the frozen land. He should stop and wait it out, but he can’t — not if he wants to survive. He keeps walking.

After four, his magic fails him. He’s been pushing it to its limit, trying to ward off the deadly cold, but he has been doing that for _weeks_ , on top of fighting. Summoning Al’ar was the last straw; with his reserves depleted, his magic flickers out and disappear, leaving him even more vulnerable to the elements. His hair whips him across the face; snowflakes blinds him; the cold seeps through his clothes and makes itself home inside his bones. He keeps walking.

He loses the track of time afterward. Everything moves slowly, sluggish and sticky like hot tar dripping down his back. His sight is blurry, compromised by the frost gathering in his eyelashes and his exhaustion weighing on his mind. His arms are curled around him and he can’t, for the life of him, move them: they barely feel like they belong to him, two dead weights frozen around his torso. Each blink drags sandpaper on his eyes; each step is harder than the last, as if he were lifting stones rather than his feet. The snow comes up to his knees and it feels— heavy. Not cold, not wet, simply _heavy_.

At first he was cold, and then he got so cold it _burned_ , but now he is frozen to the deepest part of his being — the cold is inside of him, on his skin and in his blood, and it makes him numb. Numb and tired. He cannot think, cannot wonder if he is even walking in the right direction. All he can do is drag one foot after the other, always moving, always forward.

Kael’thas stumbles.

It’s not the first time. He’s stumbled a hundred times on this walk toward death; there is as much snow on him as around him, it feels like. He’s stumbled a hundred times and stood up again a hundred more, it’s nothing unusual. Just another step.

But why does he even do it? What is the point, really? He is going to die, what is the difference between right there or a few feet farther?

This time he doesn’t get up again. He falls into the snow and the entire weight of this insane crusade falls on his back, pinning him to the ground. He is tired, and the snow doesn’t even feel that cold, finally; it feels like the best place in the world, right now. He closes his eyes.

Just one moment. He’s not sleeping. It would be stupid. But he can rest, just a moment. He is tired, so tired — desperate for just a moment of respite. There’s no wrong in taking a second to rest before he stands again; just a minute; just a second of rest…

 

... _kael...as..._

_...thas….up…_

… _el’thas… ake up…_

Voice, distant and incomprehensible, echo in the darkness.

_Kael’thas…_

He doesn’t know what or whom is talking; what or whom they are referring to. All he knows is that he is comfortable, floating weightlessly in the void, and he’s _tired_. He feels like he could sleep forever and still wake up exhausted. He might as well not bother.

_Wake up…_

There is an equally-distant feeling of _pain._ He can’t actually feel it; nothing hurts, yet, but there is a definitive impression that it _should_ , and that it _will_ , once he is alert enough for it. Right now he is neither conscious nor asleep; aware, but not awake. It is comfortably, wonderfully pain-free, and he intends to stay like that as long as he can.

_Please..._

The voice is louder; easier to understand and recognize. To his dazed mind, it is as familiar as his own, as comforting as the beat of his heart. It echoes in the same way, as if the two were synchronized; as if it came from the inside of his mind, rather than the freezing world surrounding it, from which he is hiding.

_Please, my love, wake up. I can’t—_

He wakes up.

 

Kael’thas comes back to himself with a gasp, which quickly dissolves into a hacking cough. He bends forward, one hand covering his mouth and the other curling in the scratchy sheet of his bed. It’s one of the cots of the healer tent; he wonders, briefly, what he is doing here, before the even preceding his loss of consciousness come crashing into him hard enough to make him sway.

He’s genuinely surprised to still be alive — and, more importantly, he hopes Illidan is, too.

The rude and sudden awakening only highlight how much everything hurts. His throat is raw, his lungs burn like he’s just run a marathon, his watery eyes sting, his lips are chapped and bleeding. There is not a single muscle of his body which does not ache in some way or another; the very act of having a beating heart makes him long for what must have been a heavily-medicated sleep. Or a near-death experience.

Light, but death sounds like a nice alternative to whatever it is he is feeling right now. Life has no right hurting that much.

“Oh. You’re alive.”

He falls back against the pillows and turns his head as much as his aching neck will allow to weakly glare at Vashj. She seems unmoved. Actually, she seems— stony. Cold. He hasn’t seen her like this since the first time they met. He blinks the tears from his eyes and open his mouth to reply, but nothing comes out. She holds a cup of water to his lips, tipping it slowly so that he doesn’t drown himself trying to parch his thirst. He smiles gratefully at her once the cup is empty, but she doesn’t react; she only puts the cup back on the bedside table and crossed her arm over her chest. Her eyes never leave him. He feels very much like he’s facing a large predator rather than one of his closest friends.

“You don’t sound thrilled by that,” He finally manages.

Apparently it’s the wrong thing to say.

“Thrilled— Of course I’m not _thrilled_ , you daft _child_!” Vashj gestures toward him in irritation. One of her hand rises to twist in her hair before she notices the nervous tell and forces it down again, curling it into a fist at her side. “You almost _died_!”

Kael’thas looks away so he doesn’t have to look at her obvious distress anymore. He’s not— _sorry_ for what he did, but he _is_ sorry for putting her in such a state.

“Do you know how we found you?” She doesn’t leave him the time to reply; she steamrolls over his instinctive ‘no’, hissing, “Your bird dropped Illidan bleeding and unconscious in our hand and immediately turned around. I had to choose between you and him, you know? I had to— to throw the healers in his direction and hope for the best while I ran behind Al’ar. And then he _disappeared_ in a puff of smoke halfway there — I thought you were _dead_! I thought we had been too slow and— and—”

Vashj tugs on her hair, snarling in frustration. He’s never seen her so out of sort, so— so _afraid_. The sight shocks him into silence, and once she finds her composure again she keeps going.

“We found you —don’t ask me how, I have no idea what kind of miracle happened, but we _found you_ , collapsed in the snow, half-dead already— your skin was blue, Kael’thas! Skin isn’t _supposed_ to be blue!”

“Yours is?”

She hissed. “ _Shut up_. Your skin was blue and you weren’t breathing, we carried you back to the camp without knowing if there was anything left to be done— I was ready to march the army to the Frozen Throne to demand of Arthas that he raises you from the dead, can you imagine? You were _dead_ , Kael’thas. The only question was if we could bring you back without resorting to necromancy.”

She inhales shakily.

“I don’t know how the healers brought you back. Frankly, I don’t want to — they _did,_ nothing else matters. What I _do_ know is that I almost lost you both in the same night.” Her voice is weaker than usual, weaker than it should ever be, her eyes strained somewhere below his own. “What the fuck was I supposed to do then, huh? Keep fighting a war I have no stake in? Bury you both and go back to the sea?”

“I—”

“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. You’re not.” She waves her hand, her cold rage simmering down into quiet frustration. “It’s alright. I understand why you did it; I might have done the same, were I in a similar situation. Still, I reserve myself the right to be angry at you for a little longer.”

His laugh is a little watery and cut short by the pain in his throat, but the ensuing smile sticks. “I earned that.”

“You damn well did!”

But Vashj semi-serious outrage is equally short-lived. She lets out a sharp sigh, licks her lips and looks away before pinning him down with a hard stare. He gulps.

“He woke up before you came back.”

There is no question as to whom she is referring to.

“Oh.”

“Yes, _oh_.”

She doesn’t say anything else. Kael’thas tries very hard not to fidget, because it’s undignified and a clear show of his discomfort but mostly because even the slightest movement hurts like a bitch.

(He wonders, briefly, where Illidan is. The healer’s tent isn’t that big, he’d see him if he were there. Did they move him in his own tent? That seems inconvenient.)

He plays with the sheet in his lap a bit. His hands are still numb, but his fingertips tingle faintly, which was an unpleasant feeling but a convenient distraction from the heavy silence. Finally, he cracks and asks, “What— did he do?”

Vashj shakes her head. “I’m not the one you should ask. Do you want me to tell him you’re awake?”

“No, no, I’ll— I’ll go see him.”

Before she can stop him he swings his legs over the side of his cot, despite the stabbing pain in his side at the movement. When he glances down, he sees red-tinted bandages — a painful reminder of his almost-lethal fall into a crevice, or some other fall he doesn’t remember. It doesn’t matter: he almost died and so did his soulmate and he feels like a discussion about reasonable risks to take is long overdue between the two of them.

His feet have barely touched the floor that his sense of balance completely disappears. His vision blacks out and his knees buckle under his weight, dropping him like a stone. Four scaled arms catch him before he can hit the ground and unceremoniously dump him back on the bed.

“I’ll go get him,” Vashj says, in a tone of voice that brooks no argument. Kael’thas gathers his legs back on the cot and doesn’t bother trying to convince her otherwise.

This is not a discussion he wants to have, but better now that later, when regrets and fears have had the time to fester and hide in the dark corners of their minds.

(Diplomatic confrontations to defuse a situation have always come naturally to Rommath and his frank, no-shits-given attitude. Kael’thas, having been raised by and for the court and then spent most of his formative years among socially awkward, mildly insane mages, tends to struggle with it. Unfortunately, such an ability is always needed in a healthy relationship, and Kael’thas doesn’t expect anything from Illidan as far as social skills go, what with the whole “isolated from civilization for ten thousand years” thing.)

He looks around while he waits, meticulously cataloging the interior of the healer’s tent, which he has not yet had the… _chance_ to see in detail, only breezing through to check on people or drop the results of his research. It is oddly empty at the moment, and he suspects his presence might be the cause.

It is, he has to admit, not the best way to distract himself from his dread. He has no reason to be this apprehensive, really — what’s the worst that could happen? Illidan crying?

Light, he hopes Illidan won’t cry. He doesn’t seem the type, but Kael’thas _really_ doesn’t know what to do with crying people. Especially when they’re crying because of him.

“You’re awake.”

It was, apparently, still a good enough distraction, because he had _not_ heard Illidan come in. The man is way too sneaky for a seven-foot-tall glowing bat. He loiters at the opening of the tent, arms crossed over his chest. He is _covered_ in bandages, most colored a faint green by dried blood. It takes most of Kael’thas self-control to stop himself from reaching out — that and the pain, like lightning through his body at each slight movement.

(Who would have guessed almost dying would hurt that much?)

Kael’thas clears his throat and goes for a smile. “So are you. Given your state, I’m surprised you’re not sleeping the whole thing off.”

Illidan grunts noncommittally. Kael’thas’ smile slips off his face as the silence stretches, heavy with things unsaid — things neither of them is keen on saying. Outside the tent, he can hear the hustle and bustle of early-morning camp, when the night watch drags themselves to sleep and the day-dwellers start their day. The cold air that wafts through the gaps smells like smoke and cooking meat, and it carries with it indistinct chatter and the clanging of moving armors. Kael’thas can see the scene in his mind’s eye, the same as every morning they have spent in Northrend: the blacksmiths starting their fires; mages hauling buckets of lukewarm water to nagas and blood elves sharing their first meal of the day, sometimes laughing together and sometimes staring at nothing in particular, eyes haunted by grief; melancholy, both terrible and reassuring in its familiarity.

There’s a weight in the air. Something thrumming like electricity under his skin, amplified by the frantic activity outside and the burning intensity of Illidan’s eyes, entirely focused on him. Kael’thas licks his teeth until he can only taste copper and the leftover ozone of magical exhaustion and stares right back at Illidan, refusing to let himself be cowed by— whatever this is.

Illidan sighs and his shoulders drop, something like defeat or sheer exhaustion writing itself on his face. He crosses the space in slow, even steps, as if approaching a wounded animal, and Kael’thas would be annoyed by that if he didn’t feel like running away right now.

Now that he’s closer, Kael’thas notices the faint tremors in his fingers, which he tries to hide by digging his claws in his arms, leaving crescent-shaped indents in his bruised flesh. His wings shiver, restless like he seldom is. His jaw tenses and relaxes in turns. He’s nervous— no. He’s _afraid._

(Is he afraid for Kael’thas, or afraid _of_ him, of the things Kael’thas could do to him if given the chance?)

Oh, this is even worse than he thought.

“Help me up,” He demands, already throwing his legs over the side of the bed. Illidan jerks forward in an aborted attempt to stop him, hands stopped halfway, outreached and still shaking. “Come on, this isn’t a discussion I want to have lying down. Help me up.”

There’s a beat where he expects Illidan to react like Vashj and tell him to stay in the bed, but finally he takes a small step forward and offers him his hands. Kael’thas takes them and Illidan bears his weight easily, lifting him to his feet without any apparent effort. He is overly careful, as if expecting Kael’thas to shatter at the slightest touch. He sways, suddenly lightheaded, and Illidan lets go of his hands to rests them on his hips, steadying him.

“Dammit, Kael’thas,” He whispers, breathless, and his voice breaks on the last syllable. “I thought you were dead. You weren’t breathing and everything hurt so much I thought I was dying, too, and I was _glad_ , Kael, I really was.” A half-choked sob escapes him and he clenches his teeth, hissing, as if still in pain. “I couldn’t bear to survive you.”

And he sounds so sad, so scared, Kael’thas feels his heart breaks a little in his chest. What did he expect? This man was alone for ten thousand years and then he gave him _hope_ before taking it away on an impulse decision. He didn’t mean to but he _did_ and— Light, but he not allowed to sacrifice himself anymore, is he? Illidan made himself vulnerable, opened himself and allowed a near stranger to reach into his chest and pull his heart out and keep it in his hands, all in the name of _fate,_ dictated by a few words on their skin.

What a terrifying responsibility it is, to hold someone’s heart. What a terrifying amount of power to have on such a dangerous man.

Because this is what it is, to have a soulmate. It’s a responsibility to the one tied at the other end of the bond. He’s no more allowed to die than Illidan is — they’ve each got a hand around the other’s throat.

(Sylvanas once told him: _love is the world’s most pointless hostage situation,_ sneering at the thought. Kael’thas is nowhere near her level of cynicism but he can see where the thought comes from — but he can also see the _appeal_ in it. Entrusting your life to someone else like that is intoxicating, an adrenaline-fueled balancing act over disaster.)

The ache in his muscles completely forgotten, Kael’thas cradles Illidan’s face in his hands, gently brushing his cheekbones with his thumbs until he lets his scowl fall away. His shoulders tense briefly when he realizes he’s been digging his claws in Kael’thas’ back, but he simply relaxes his hold instead of stepping away completely. Kael’thas is grateful for it. The touch is grounding him as much as Illidan, and he fears he would collapse without it.

“I can’t loseyou, too,” Illidan gasps out.

“Oh, darling, _you won’t_.” Kael’thas narrows his eyes and his voice goes dark with promises. “I won’t let them kill you, and I definitely won’t let them kill _me_.”

Illidan chuckles wetly. “What makes you believe you can succeed where I have failed?”

“Well, we’re alive, aren’t we?”

“I guess we are.”

Kael’thas tightens his hold on his face slightly and pulls Illidan down. He doesn’t crash their lips together, no matter how much he wishes to; instead he kisses Illidan softly, as careful of his still-bleeding edges as Illidan was of his. This time it’s not pain that leaves him breathless and lightheaded; it’s feeling this so-called monster fold himself under his hands, this person-shaped natural disaster, suddenly tame and fragile. He tastes like copper and sulfur and the heat of his mouth spreads across Kael’thas’ whole body, rekindling the fire in his chest and burning through his veins.

Kissing Illidan feels very much like coming back to life.

He draws back before they get carried away and is smugly satisfied to see his frustration mirrored in Illidan’s eyes. But he won’t risk either of them losing control, not when they’re both recovering from severe blood loss and hypothermia. He doesn’t go very far, though; their faces stay close together, close enough they breathe the same air, and Kael’thas gazes directly into Illidan’s burning eyes.

“You’re alive. _We’re alive_ ,” He repeats. Then, “Do you trust me?”

Illidan doesn’t even pause to think about it. He replies with immediate, absolute sincerity: “ _Yes_.”

A grin blooms on Kael’thas’ face. “Then we are invincible.”

 

It’s a bit of a lie on his part. Death has not ceased to exist just because they have reached some kind of balance in their soulmate bond; the world is still an awful, blood-thirsty place, and they are still stuck in the worst place it has to offer.

Still, part of it is true: things are easier once you stop fighting alone.

Trust is a small but significant step in the right direction and Kael’thas is grateful for it. As long as they’re moving forward, things will be fine; it means they’re still alive enough to fight, and as long as they can fight, they can save the world.

But it will take a lot more small steps.

After this, Kael’thas sneaks out of the healers’ tent with Illidan. They half-carry each other — Illidan doing most of the carrying — to their own tent, which stands to the side of the camp, out of earshot of most of the soldiers.

(They both get nightmares, even Illidan who doesn’t sleep as much as he passes out in sheer exhaustion for seven hours a week. It wouldn’t do to wake up half their army because of mere dreams now, would it?)

They collapse together in the pile of pillows and blankets that serves as Illidan’s bed. Kael’thas’ own is way too cluttered for anyone but him to be sleeping in it, and even then he tends to fall asleep at his desk rather than bother with twisting himself in a half-comfortable position around the mess on his cot, too tired to move any of it in a better place.

Illidan stretches his limbs with a pained grimace. He always does that after a long day trudging through the frozen wilderness; his wings especially are always sore after hours kept tight and still against his back, as if he were afraid to draw attention to them. He isn’t quite as self-conscious with Kael’thas there. Sleeping next to another person every night for a month tends to encourage comfort and Kael’thas has put a lot of time and effort into making sure Illidan knows how attractive he considers him.

(He knows what he likes and has never seen the point in being subtle about it.)

Kael’thas wonders at his pain tolerance. He is positively _covered_ in bloody bandages and still he moves around as if it were nothing; Kael’thas can barely move, and he didn’t take a blade to the stomach.

What happened, in this dark, lonely place under the mountain, that pain is but an afterthought for him? How much of his own blood did he shed in hope to bring some semblance of feeling into his life, or to bring his life to its end?

How much time did he takes him to become numb to it?

But now is not the time to think about such things. Kael’thas bites his tongue before he can say something he shouldn’t and lets the rage burns itself out beneath his skin. Then, when his hands stop shaking quite as much and he manages to unlock his jaw, he kneels next to Illidan’s head and lets his fingers skim over his skin.

He heals fast, supernaturally so, but Frostmourne is no regular sword. Kael’thas cuts through the bandages on his left arm to look closer at the wounds it inflicted and finds them still bleeding sluggishly, blood thick and dark. The skin around the gashes is a sickly blue-purple, almost necrotic, and it feels cold to the touch. He scowls.

“Stop fretting,” Illidan admonishes gently. 

Kael’thas shakes his head. “There must be something I can do.”

Mages lack healing spells, something he has long been fruitlessly working on, and he is not even _close_ to being a priest, but Solarian has taken upon herself to teach him a few necessary warlock tricks. Life drain is hardly a healing spell; who knows what kind of secondary effects could come from replenishing one’s life energy with that stolen from others. But Illidan is already mostly made of fel — at this point, he can’t make it _worse_.

Kael’thas can work with that.

(He doesn’t stop to think, maybe Illidan wouldn’t agree to him basically taking his own life force to help him heal faster. It feels too important not to try. Necessary, even. Like his energy is already leaking through the cracks, and without Kael’thas to close them he’ll simply run out of himself. 

Who knows what Frostmourne is capable of, after all?)

“There _is_ something I can do.”

Illidan lets his head fall back until he is looking upside-down at Kael’thas. “Be careful.”

“Aren’t I always?”

Silence is his answer. He ignores it. Illidan is too tired, too drawn out emotionally to stop him; all he does is sigh. “Do your worst.”

Kael’thas smiles. He’s tired, dizzy and magically-exhausted: no different from countless nights of experimentations at the Kirin Tor, trying to make a breakthrough in his field. He can do this.

He reaches into the part of himself that is home to his magic and _tugs_. Using so much magic in such a consistent manner means mages develop mana pathways, similar to blood in that they are necessary to the function of their body — or, at least, of their magic, which is for many just as necessary as breathing. Because of this, his mana and his life-force are closely intertwined, each drawing on the other to fortify itself.

Presently, his magical reserves are dried out — the unfortunate aftermath of magical exhaustion. But he follows the empty canals, prodding at the dim feeling of warmth which makes little sense outside of his own mind, and lets them lead him to his own energy. His life force.

The whole processus is near instantaneous to any trained warlock, but it takes him an entire minute before he feels like he has a solid grasp on his life force. He still has a long way to go. It’s exciting: he never thought he’d find an entire school of magic that is both attainable and unknown to him.

“It might sting a little,” He warns, voice distant, eyes strained on the wounds which glow a faint, lightless purple to his magic-infused eyes.

“I feel pretty confident saying I’ve had worse.”

This drags a chuckle out of Kael’thas. He rises, makes his way to Illidan’s side, and kneels there instead, knees pressed against his ribs. He presses two fingers against the wound on his arm he was just inspecting then runs them down the length of the cut, his touch light but firm. The corruption disappears like steel wool set on fire, the necrosed magic that stuck to Illidan’s blood turning into ashes that fall away and dissipate into the air.

He only notices Illidan’s flinch because of the direct contact.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not— quite.”

A nod. That makes sense. It doesn’t feel like pain to Kael’thas, either; it’s rather more like pulling on a sore muscle, or like being the kind of hungry that only happens at three am after studying obscure magic theories for five hours straight. 

The wound isn’t immediately cured when he lifts his fingers, but it looks healthier, like it’s actually going to heal, now, so he goes for the next one, and then the one after that. The spell drains him like a hundred arcane spells — either because the reserves it taps in are smaller than what he is used to, or because of Illidan’s magic-draining nature, he isn’t sure. Probably both. There is an ache deep under his ribs which proves to be more of an inconvenience than a real issue; the hunger and exhaustion which quickly settle in are another problem altogether. One that, although easier to resolve, also happens to be a lot harder to ignore.

He’s so absorbed in his task he doesn’t see Illidan reach for him until he is holding his wrist, keeping his still-sparkling hands away from him.

“ _Kael’thas_ ,” He says in a way that supposes it is not the first time he has said it in the last minute. “Stop.”

“But—”

Illidan tugs on his arm and Kael’thas goes with it, flopping bonelessly against his chest. Now that he’s lying down, he realizes he is a lot more tired than he thought. And a lot more comfortable, too — Illidan makes for a pretty good mattress, all things considered.

“But you’re still hurt,” He protests, weakly.

Illidan loops his arms around him, holding him down in a warm embrace. He appears as sleepy as Kael’thas feels, movements slow and clumsy but always gentle. 

He wants to tell him he won’t break, but he’s not sure it’s the truth.

“Shh. There’s still time.”

He’s right. It’s not as if the newly-crowned Lich King were already in full possession of his powers. They can afford a nap.

Probably.

Kael’thas closes his eyes and heaves a sigh, letting the tension bleeds away from his limbs and manoeuvring himself until he’s half curled against Illidan’s side and half sprawled _on_ him. He’s not sure how he manages that, but it’s comfortable.

“Alright,” He whispers against Illidan’s skin. Illidan hums.

(Later they’ll have to pick up what’s left of their army, pack everything and run back to Outland. They’ll have to prepare for the war they still have to wage. They have a lot of work to do.

But right now, they sleep. They’ve earned it.)

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it!!! stay tuned for the next part, which SHOULD be shorter and, as such, takes less time to write. but I make no promise. the first part was supposed to be under 5k words and look how THAT turned out.
> 
> As always, I hope you liked it, leave a kudo/comment if you did <3
> 
> Teaser for the next part, brought to you by my weekly 8h of philosophy (and Kant, I guess): _“Maybe it is reasonable to believe that, one day, the world will be as it should be.”_
> 
> And for more headcanons/shitposts/updates (sometimes), there's [my tumblr](https://youngster-monster.tumblr.com/)! Including character study, and stuff!
> 
> See u <3


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